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Dessert

Suet Puff

A steamed puff made with suet, raisins, molasses, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Puff

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the egg, sour milk, and molasses.

  2. Add the flour, chopped suet, chopped raisins, and baking soda, then mix well.

Steam

  1. Fill cups half full with the mixture.

  2. Steam for 30 minutes.

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. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour 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

Egg
Binds the batter together and helps give it structure as it sets.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity, which reacts with baking soda to lift the batter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and deep color and flavor to the batter.
Flour
Forms the main structure that holds the pudding together.
Suet
Melts during steaming, adding richness and a tender crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk's acid to produce gas that makes the pudding rise.

The step that matters

Fill cups half full with the mixture.. Leaving room lets the batter rise as the baking soda reacts with the sour milk's acid and steam expands it. Overfilled cups can spill over or leave the pudding heavy.

“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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