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Dessert

Suet Plum Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, molasses, milk, raisins, flour, egg, spices, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

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

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a pudding mold.

  2. Place the mold in a kettle of water and boil for 3 hours.

  3. Serve with sweet 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. Clove + cinnamontop 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

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender during long cooking.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a dark color with a rich flavor.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps set the pudding's structure as it cooks.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that helps the pudding rise.

The step that matters

Boiling the mold for 3 hours. The pudding cooks slowly in steam and water. If the kettle boils dry or the water stops simmering, the pudding cooks unevenly and can turn out dense or underdone in the center.

Swap the clove

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

  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, milk, raisin, flour, egg, cinnamon, 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.

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