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Dessert

Boiled Christmas Pudding

A steamed or boiled dessert made with raisins, currants, mixed peel, suet, almonds, molasses, eggs, bread crumbs, flour, and brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boiled Christmas Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large bowl, combine the raisins, currants, mixed peel, chopped suet, and split almonds.

  2. Add the molasses, eggs, stale bread crumbs, and flour, then mix well.

  3. Sweeten the mixture with brown sugar to taste.

Cook and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a pudding cloth or mold.

  2. Boil for 5 to 6 hours.

  3. Serve with hard 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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  5. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help give the pudding its set structure as it cooks.
Stale bread crumbs
Soak up the liquid and add body, giving the pudding a soft, tender crumb.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep, dark flavor.
Flour
Helps thicken the mixture and gives it structure.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Boiling for 5 to 6 hours. The pudding must cook long and at a steady simmer so the eggs and starches set fully and the dense mixture heats through. Too little time leaves it wet and under-set.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, almond, molasses, egg, bread, flour, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, almond, molasses, egg, bread, flour, sugar. 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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