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Dessert

Steamed Suet Pudding

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

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 ↓

Steamed Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the flour, baking soda, spices, and suet together in a large bowl.

  2. Add the molasses, raisins, currants, and water; stir until combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into a single mold or small molds.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for 3 hours in a single mold or 1 hour in small molds.

  2. Serve hot with fruit 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. 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. Cinnamon + raisintop 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

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to lift and lighten the batter.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Molasses
Adds dark sweetness and moisture, and deepens the color of the pudding.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam for the full time. Steaming is what cooks the batter through and sets its crumb. Cutting the time short leaves the center dense and gummy, so the steaming time must match the mold size.

Swap the currant

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

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

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

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