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Dessert

Suet Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, sour milk, molasses, raisins, spices, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs in a large bowl.

  2. Add the sugar and mix well.

  3. Stir in the finely chopped suet and molasses.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk and add to the mixture.

  5. Fold in the flour, spices, and chopped raisins.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a buttered mold.

  2. Steam for three hours until cooked through.

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. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the pudding sets.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and a deep flavor to the pudding.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk and add to the mixture.. Baking soda needs an acid to release gas. Dissolving it fully in the sour milk before adding it spreads the reaction evenly, so the pudding rises uniformly instead of forming dense or patchy spots.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, nutmeg, molasses, flour, sugar, 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.

More suet pudding recipes

Lemon 28Boiled 19Steamed 12Potato 11Apple 10Raisin 10 See all 649 →

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