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Dessert

Rhubarb Pudding, Boiled

A boiled rhubarb pudding made with suet crust, sugar, and served with cream and sifted sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rhubarb and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 670 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Rhubarb Pudding, Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crust

  1. Mix ½ lb. of flour with suet to make a suet crust.

  2. Line a buttered basin with the suet crust.

Prepare the rhubarb

  1. Wash and wipe the rhubarb.

  2. String the rhubarb if old.

  3. Cut the rhubarb into 1-inch lengths.

Assemble and boil

  1. Fill the basin with rhubarb.

  2. Add the sugar.

  3. Cover with the crust.

  4. Pinch the edges of the pudding together.

  5. Tie a floured cloth over it.

  6. Place it in boiling water.

  7. Boil for 2 to 2.5 hours.

Serve

  1. Turn it out of the basin.

  2. Serve with cream and sifted sugar.

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. Rhubarb + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together670 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Rhubarb
Provides the tart filling that is balanced by the sugar and the sweet crust.
Suet crust
Forms a rich, sturdy casing that holds the filling together while it steams.
Moist sugar
Sweetens the rhubarb and softens its sharp acidity during the long boil.
Suet
Adds fat to the crust, making it tender and rich as it cooks.

The step that matters

Boil for 2 to 2.5 hours. The pudding must stay submerged in gently boiling water for the full time so the suet crust cooks through and the rhubarb softens. Water that stops boiling or drops too low leaves the crust doughy and the filling underdone.

Swap the rhubarb

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, butter, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Jalapenofits about as well
  4. Rhubarbthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, butter, cream. 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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