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Dessert

A Nice Christmas Pudding

A steamed or boiled pudding made with soaked crackers, milk, eggs, suet, molasses, brandy, raisins, currants, spices, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

A Nice Christmas Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Soak the pounded crackers or bread crumbs in milk until well soaked but not too thin.

  2. In a large bowl, combine the soaked mixture with the beaten eggs, sugar, suet, molasses, brandy, salt, raisins, currants, citron, nutmeg, mace, cloves, lemon rind, and baking soda. Mix well until all ingredients are combined.

Cook and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture into a mold or pudding cloth.

  2. Boil for 5 hours.

  3. Serve with a rich brandy or wine sauce.

  4. For presentation, pour brandy over the pudding and ignite just before serving.

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. Brandy + curranttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and help the pudding set as it cooks.
Crackers or bread crumbs
Soak up milk to form the body of the pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and natural sweetness.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and deep sweetness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to lighten the texture.

The step that matters

Boil for 5 hours. The pudding must cook steadily for the full time so the eggs and starch set through and the texture becomes firm rather than wet. Keep the water boiling and topped up so the pudding does not dry out or go soggy.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, egg, sugar, molasses, brandy, raisin):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, egg, sugar, molasses, brandy, raisin. 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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