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Dessert

Half-pay Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, currants, sultanas, molasses, and a stiff batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,180 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, creamy. The science ↓

Half-pay Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the baking powder, chopped suet, currants, sultanas, and molasses.

  2. Add milk gradually until you achieve a stiff batter. Beat the mixture for five minutes.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a greased mold or basin.

  2. Boil for three hours or steam for four hours.

  3. Turn out the pudding and 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. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

  2. Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Raisin + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  4. Currant + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Currant + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,817 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the pudding rises and becomes light.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it cooks.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and a rich, moist texture.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy bits of fruit throughout the pudding.
Sultanas or raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Milk
Brings the dry ingredients together into a stiff batter that holds its shape while cooking.

The step that matters

Add milk gradually until the batter is stiff. Adding milk slowly lets you stop at a stiff batter. Too much liquid at once makes the mixture loose, so it may not hold together or set firmly when boiled or steamed.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, molasses, milk. 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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