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Dessert

Nut Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, walnuts, dates, figs, flour, and milk, served with a butter‑egg‑sugar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Dates and fig work together. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 318 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

Nut Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Combine chopped suet, walnuts, flour, dates, figs, and baking soda dissolved in warm milk in a large bowl, then mix well.

  2. Pour the mixture into a pudding mold.

  3. Steam for two and a half hours or longer.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Cream together butter, egg, and sugar until smooth to make the sauce.

  2. Serve the pudding warm with grape juice or wine.

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. Dates + figtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  2. Walnut + figtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together373 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

  4. Walnut + datestop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together302 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Milk + figtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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 during steaming.
Flour
Provides the starch structure that holds the fruit and nuts together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the dissolved milk to help the pudding rise and lighten.
Dates
Add natural sweetness and a soft, chewy moisture to the pudding.
Figs
Add sweetness and a soft, chewy moisture to the pudding.
Butter
Adds richness and smooth body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Steaming the pudding. The pudding needs a long, steady steam so the batter sets through and the suet softens without the mold boiling dry. Rushing this step leaves the center dense or underdone.

Swap the dates

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (walnut, flour, milk, fig, butter, egg, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, flour, milk, fig, butter, egg, sugar. 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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