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Dessert

Suet Pudding

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the raisins, salt, molasses, baking soda, sour milk, and flour.

  2. If using, add the chopped suet and dried currants, then mix well.

  3. Add salt and spices to taste.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for 2 hours until thoroughly cooked.

  3. Serve with a liquid 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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the pudding its body and structure.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and deep color and flavor to the pudding.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda and adds moisture and tang.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acids in the sour milk and molasses to release gas, helping the pudding rise.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it steams.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy pieces that stay soft during steaming.

The step that matters

Steam for the full time. Steaming is moist, gentle heat that cooks the batter through without drying it. Stopping early leaves the centre raw and dense, so the pudding should steam until fully set.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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

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