Name: Suet Pudding
Ingredients: 2 eggs; 1 cup sugar; 1 cup suet, finely chopped; ½ cup molasses; 2 cups all-purpose flour; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 cup milk; spices to taste

Why it works: Sugar and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

Beat the eggs in a bowl.
Add the sugar and mix well.
Stir in the finely chopped suet and molasses.
In a separate bowl, dissolve the baking soda in the milk and add it to the mixture.
Gradually add the flour and spices, mixing until combined.

Steam and serve

Pour the mixture into a buttered mold.
Steam for three hours.

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.

Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,225 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,429 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Bind the batter and add structure as they set during steaming.
Suet: Adds richness and a moist, tender texture as it melts into the batter.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, dark colour and a deep, rich flavour.
Baking soda: Reacts with the molasses' acidity to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
All-purpose flour: Provides the main structure that sets the pudding as it cooks.

“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.