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Dessert

N’ew College Puddings

A suet-based pudding with currants, bread, biscuit, eggs, and spices, fried and served with pounded loaf sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Biscuit and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 368 recipes. Both carry maltol, which smells caramel, sweet. The science ↓

N’ew College Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. In a bowl, mix the suet, currants, grated bread, pounded biscuit, salt, nutmeg, and candied orange peel.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and combine well.

Fry and serve

  1. In a skillet, heat butter over medium heat.

  2. Fry the mixture until light brown, shaking the pan and turning frequently.

  3. Serve with pounded loaf sugar sprinkled on top.

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. Biscuit + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together368 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Nutmeg + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Bread + biscuittop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together319 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Adds richness and fat, keeping the pudding moist and tender as it fries.
Eggs
Bind the dry ingredients together and help set the mixture as it cooks.
Grated bread
Gives body to the mixture and soaks up fat and moisture from the suet.
Currants
Provide pockets of sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Fry the mixture until light brown. Frying over medium heat with frequent turning browns the surface evenly through the Maillard reaction while the eggs set the inside. Too little attention can scorch the outside before the centre firms.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, biscuit, nutmeg, orange, egg, butter):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, biscuit, nutmeg, orange, egg, butter. 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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