Name: Common Baked Raisin Pudding
Ingredients: ¾ pound flour; ¾ pound raisins; 6 ounces beef suet, finely chopped; a pinch of salt; grated nutmeg to taste; 3 eggs, whisked; ¼ pint milk (or less if eggs are large)

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Common Baked Raisin Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make and bake the pudding

In a large bowl, beat together the flour, raisins, beef suet, salt, nutmeg, eggs, and milk until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a buttered dish.
Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

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.

Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,759 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 bakes.
Eggs: Bind the mixture and help it set firm as the pudding bakes.
Beef suet: Adds fat that gives the pudding a rich, moist texture.
Raisins: Add sweetness and chewy pockets of fruit throughout the pudding.
Milk: Adds moisture and loosens the batter so it bakes evenly.

The step that matters

Adding the milk. The record says to use less milk if the eggs are large. Too much liquid makes the batter loose and slow to set, while too little leaves the pudding dry and dense. Check the batter's consistency before pouring it into the dish.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, raisin, beef, egg, milk):

Cinnamonfits about as well
Nutmegthe original
Jalapenofits less well
Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, raisin, beef, egg, milk. 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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Common Baked Raisin Pudding