Name: Steamed Suet and Fruit Pudding
Ingredients: 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour; 1 teaspoon baking soda; ½ teaspoon salt; ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon; ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg; 1 cup chopped suet or ⅔ cup butter; 1 cup chopped raisins or currants; 1 cup water or milk; 1 cup molasses

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 ↓

Steamed Suet and Fruit Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

Sift the baking soda, salt, and spices into the flour.
Rub in the butter (or suet) and add the raisins.
Mix the milk (or water) with the molasses and stir it into the dry mixture.

Steam and serve

Steam in a buttered pudding mold for 3 hours.
If using water and butter, increase flour to 3 cups.
You can also steam in cups.
Serve with foamy 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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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 main structure that holds the dense pudding together.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic molasses to release gas that lightens the batter.
Suet or butter: Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Raisins or currants: Add chewy texture and natural sweetness throughout the pudding.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, moisture, dark color, and a deep flavor.
Milk or water: Hydrates the flour so the starches form a cohesive batter.

“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.