Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Boiled Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the batter
In a large bowl, combine sour milk, sugar, suet, currants, raisins, and baking soda.
Add flour gradually until the mixture is very stiff.
Boil and serve
Pour the mixture into a cloth and tie it securely.
Boil the pudding in water for 2 hours.
Serve with pudding sauce.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,180 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
-
Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,155 recipes
Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sour milk
- Provides moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the sour milk's acid to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
- Suet
- Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it cooks.
- Flour
- Builds the structure that holds the pudding together while it boils.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps brown the pudding's flavor.
- Raisins
- Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.
The step that matters
Add flour until the mixture is very stiff. A stiff batter holds its shape inside the cloth and sets into a firm pudding. A loose batter can leak from the cloth and turn heavy and soggy as it boils.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, raisin, flour):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, raisin, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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