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Dessert

Treacle and Suet Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, suet, treacle, breadcrumbs, lemon juice, and cold water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,404 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Treacle and Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the paste

  1. Mix salt, baking powder, and suet with flour.

  2. Add cold water to form a stiff paste and roll it out.

Fill the basin

  1. Line a well-greased basin with the paste.

  2. Pour a little treacle in, sprinkle with breadcrumbs and lemon juice.

  3. Add a layer of paste, then more treacle, repeating until the basin is filled.

Steam

  1. Cover with a lid of paste, then with greased paper, and steam for 2.5 to 3 hours.

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. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the bulk of the paste that gives the pudding its structure.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pastry rich and tender during steaming.
Baking powder
Releases gas that helps the pudding rise and lighten.
Treacle
Adds sweetness and a deep, dark flavour that soaks into the paste.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb the treacle and lemon juice, adding texture to the layers.

The step that matters

Filling the basin and sealing the lid. Paste must be pressed firmly against the basin and the lid sealed well, so steam does not escape and water cannot enter during the long steaming. A loose seal can make the pudding soggy or waterlogged.

“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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