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Dessert

English Suet Pudding

A boiled suet pudding with raisins, currants, citron, citrus peel, spices, sugar, suet, eggs, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

English Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the raisins, currants, citron, lemon peel, orange peel, nutmeg, cinnamon, sugar, suet, and eggs thoroughly.

  2. Add enough flour to create a stiff batter.

  3. Place the mixture in a floured bag, leaving room for swelling.

Boil

  1. Place a plate in the bottom of the kettle to prevent sticking.

  2. Boil the pudding constantly for 5 hours.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the fruit and suet together and help set the pudding as it cooks.
Suet
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the pudding tender during long boiling.
Flour
Forms the stiff batter that holds the fruit and gives the pudding its body.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds to its moist, tender texture.
Raisins
Provide chewy sweetness and bulk throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil the pudding constantly for 5 hours. If the water stops boiling, the pudding cools and can turn heavy or soggy. Keeping the water at a steady boil with the plate on the bottom cooks the batter evenly and prevents scorching against the kettle.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, lemon, orange, nutmeg, cinnamon, sugar, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, lemon, orange, nutmeg, cinnamon, sugar, 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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