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Dessert

Suet Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, sour milk, molasses, raisins, currants, spices, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 large bowl, combine the chopped suet, sour milk, egg, molasses, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and salt.

  2. Stir in the raisins and currants.

  3. Add flour gradually until the mixture thickens like cake batter.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for 4 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. 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. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during long steaming.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to lighten the batter.
Egg
Helps bind the batter and gives it structure as it sets.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and a deep flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that helps the pudding rise.
Flour
Provides the structure that thickens the batter and holds the pudding together.

The step that matters

Adding the flour gradually. Flour thickens the batter as it is added, so adding too much at once can make the pudding dense and heavy. Stop when the mixture thickens like cake batter, since the gluten in flour sets the structure as it cooks.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Raisinthe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Orangefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, milk, egg, molasses, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg. 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

Lemon 28Boiled 19Steamed 12Potato 11Apple 10Raisin 10 See all 649 →

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