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Dessert

Suet Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, brown sugar, raisins, spices, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped suet, brown sugar, hot water, chopped raisins, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.

  2. Add enough flour to create a stiff batter.

Steam and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam the pudding for 2 to 5 hours, with longer steaming for better results.

  3. Serve with a liquid sauce.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Raisin + flourtop 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

Suet
Adds richness and fat, keeping the steamed pudding moist and tender.
Baking powder
Releases gas during steaming, helping the pudding rise and become light.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, along with a deep caramel flavour.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the pudding.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.

The step that matters

Steaming the pudding. Steaming gently and for a long time cooks the batter through and softens the suet, giving a moist texture. Too little steaming leaves the centre dense and underdone, so the full range of time matters.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, raisin, cinnamon, nutmeg, 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.

More suet pudding recipes

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