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Dessert

Suet Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, suet or butter, molasses, brown sugar, sour milk, flour, baking soda, nutmeg, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the raisins, butter or suet, molasses, brown sugar, and sour milk.

  2. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, grated nutmeg, and salt.

  3. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until well combined.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam the pudding for 3 hours.

  3. Serve with vinegar 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. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk or molasses to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Butter or suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep sweetness with a slight acidity.
Sour milk or buttermilk
Supplies acidity to activate the baking soda and adds moisture.

The step that matters

Stirring in the dry ingredients. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form. Stirring until just combined keeps the texture tender, while overmixing makes the pudding tough and dense.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Clovefits less well

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