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Dessert

Suet Pudding with Pears

A suet-based pudding studded with pears, baked and boiled with spices and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Suet Pudding with Pears

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the pudding

  1. Grate the suet into a fine powder.

  2. Soak the stale bread, then squeeze out the water and mix it with the suet.

  3. Add the eggs, sugar, salt, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, and lemon peel. Mix well.

  4. Incorporate enough flour to form a large ball, then sift in the baking powder.

Assemble and bake

  1. Arrange half the pear halves in a large porcelain-lined kettle.

  2. Place the pudding in the center and surround it with the remaining pear halves.

  3. Sprinkle with sugar, add sliced lemon, cloves, cinnamon bark, and syrup.

  4. Fill with water and boil for 30 minutes on the stove.

  5. Transfer to the oven and bake at 300°F (150°C) for at least 3 hours, adding water as needed.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

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

  5. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 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

Suet
Adds fat and richness, keeping the pudding moist and tender as it cooks.
Stale bread
Soaked and squeezed, it adds body and moisture to the dense pudding mixture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help give the pudding its set structure.
Flour
Adds enough body to form a large ball that holds the pudding together.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lightens the pudding and helps it rise.
Pears
Soften during long cooking, adding sweetness and fruity moisture around the pudding.

The step that matters

Keeping enough water in the kettle during the long bake. The pudding bakes for at least three hours, and the water evaporates over that time. Adding water as needed keeps the gentle, moist heat steady so the pudding cooks through without drying or scorching.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, egg, sugar, allspice, clove, cinnamon, flour):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, sugar, allspice, clove, cinnamon, 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.

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