Name: A Small Fruit Pudding
Ingredients: ½ pound bread crumbs; 1 cup sweet milk (may need a little more); ¼ pound suet, chopped fine; 3 eggs, well beaten; ½ cup molasses; 1 pound fruit, stoned and picked; 1 teaspoon baking soda; Mace, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves to taste

Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

A Small Fruit Pudding

Ingredients

½ pound bread crumbs
1 cup sweet milk (may need a little more)
¼ pound suet, chopped fine
3 eggs, well beaten
½ cup molasses
1 pound fruit, stoned and picked
1 teaspoon baking soda
Mace, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves to taste

Directions

Prepare the pudding

Soak the bread crumbs in sweet milk.
In a bowl, combine soaked bread crumbs, suet, beaten eggs, molasses, fruit, and baking soda. Add mace, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves to taste.

Cook and serve

Pour the mixture into a pudding mold.
Boil for 2.5 to 3 hours.
Serve with wine 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.

Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,331 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,686 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,557 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,400 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Bind the mixture and help set the pudding as it cooks.
Bread crumbs: Provide the body of the pudding, soaking up the milk to form a soft structure.
Suet: Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, dark color, and a deep flavor.
Baking soda: Reacts with the molasses's acidity to lighten the pudding and help it rise.

The step that matters

Boiling the pudding. The mold must stay at a steady simmer for the full 2.5 to 3 hours. Low or uneven heat leaves the center dense and undercooked, while water that boils dry can scorch the pudding or leave it tough.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, egg, molasses, nutmeg, allspice, clove):

Cinnamonfits better
Cardamomfits better
Gingerfits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, egg, molasses, nutmeg, allspice, clove. 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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A Small Fruit Pudding