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Suet Pudding

A steamed suet pudding with molasses, raisins, and spices, served with a sweet egg white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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

Make the pudding

  1. In a large bowl, combine molasses, suet, raisins, flour, milk, baking soda, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon. Mix until well combined.

  2. Place the mixture in a cloth and tie securely.

  3. Boil in water for 3 hours.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, beat egg whites until foamy, then gradually add sugar and flavor with brandy or wine.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 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. 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

Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and a rich, sweet flavor to the pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it steams.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acidity to lighten the pudding's texture.
Egg whites
Beaten until foamy, they lighten the sauce and give it a soft texture.

The step that matters

Securing the cloth. If the cloth is not tied securely, water can enter during boiling and make the pudding soggy and waterlogged.

Swap the clove

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

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

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