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Dessert

Diplomatic Pudding

A pudding of cream, sugar, lemon rind, bread crumbs, suet, marrow, raisins, orange peel, currants, eggs, nutmeg, rum, and orange water, served with orange sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Diplomatic Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In an enamelled saucepan, combine cream, loaf sugar, and grated lemon rind over gentle heat.

  2. Stir in bread crumbs, flour, beef suet, and beef marrow.

  3. Cook for 10 minutes.

  4. Transfer the mixture to a basin and let it cool.

Mix the pudding

  1. In a bowl, mix minced raisins, chopped orange peel, currants, sultana raisins, and beaten eggs.

  2. Add grated nutmeg, rum, and orange water.

  3. Beat the mixture for 15 minutes.

Steam and serve

  1. Butter a mold and decorate it with Muscadel raisins.

  2. Pour in the pudding mixture.

  3. Tie the mold securely.

  4. Boil rapidly for 2 hours.

  5. Dissolve loaf sugar in the strained juice of sweet oranges.

  6. Boil until thick.

  7. Stir in rum.

  8. Serve the sauce with the pudding.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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 it set firm when boiled.
Bread crumbs
Provide the body of the pudding, absorbing the cream and eggs.
Beef suet
Adds richness and a moist, tender texture as it melts.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the base.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and helps form the syrupy sauce.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy fruit texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil rapidly for 2 hours. The mold must be tied securely and kept at a steady rolling boil, with water topped up, so the pudding cooks through evenly and holds its shape. Weak boiling or a loose seal lets water in and leaves the texture soggy.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sugar, lemon, bread, flour, beef, raisin):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Orangethe original
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, lemon, bread, flour, beef, raisin. 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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