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Suet Pudding

A steamed suet pudding with molasses, sweet milk, flour, fruit, and a butter-sugar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a bowl, combine suet, molasses, sweet milk, flour, fruit, and baking soda.

  2. Mix well and pour into a greased pudding mold.

  3. Steam for 2 hours.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, cream together powdered sugar and butter.

Finish and serve

  1. Place the mixture in a kettle of boiling water.

  2. Stir in the beaten egg white and vanilla until smooth.

  3. Serve the pudding hot with the 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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 main structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender during steaming.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and a dark color to the pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that helps the pudding rise.
Egg white
Whipped to a stiff froth, it adds air that lightens the texture.
Butter
Creams with sugar to form a rich, fat-based sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring in the beaten egg white. Beaten egg white holds air bubbles that lighten the pudding. Stirring too vigorously deflates that foam, leaving a denser texture. Fold gently so the air stays trapped in the batter.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Raisinfits about as well
  2. Vanillathe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Peachfits less well

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

Lemon 28Boiled 19Steamed 12Potato 11Apple 10Raisin 10 See all 649 →

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