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Dessert

Suet Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, suet, raisins, currants, molasses, milk, spices, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sift the flour, spices, baking soda, and salt together.

  2. Add the chopped suet and mix thoroughly.

  3. Stir in the chopped raisins and currants.

Mix and steam

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the molasses and milk, then pour into the dry mixture.

  2. Stir well and pour into a greased mold.

  3. Steam for three hours.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Suet
Adds richness and a moist, tender texture through its fat.
Molasses
Provides sweetness, dark colour and a deep, slightly bitter flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acid to lighten the batter and help it rise.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy fruit pieces throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Stir well and pour into a greased mold. Grease keeps the pudding from sticking when unmolded. Stirring well ensures the baking soda and molasses react evenly, so the pudding rises uniformly rather than in dense pockets.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, raisin, molasses, milk, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, raisin, molasses, milk, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove. 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.

More suet pudding recipes

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