Skip to main content
Dessert

Pound Pudding

A sweet pudding made with suet, currants, raisins, breadcrumbs, flour, mixed peel, spices, milk, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Pound Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix all the ingredients well together, adding a little more milk if necessary.

  2. Turn the mixture into a well-buttered mold.

  3. Boil for about 3 to 4 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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set into a firm, sliceable pudding.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb the milk and give the pudding body and a tender crumb.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Flour
Adds structure so the pudding holds its shape after boiling.
Milk
Hydrates the dry ingredients and adds moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Boil for about 3 to 4 hours. Long, steady cooking gently sets the egg and starch in the batter and softens the suet. Too fast a boil or too little water can scorch or dry the pudding, while a short boil leaves it wet and underset in the centre.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, flour, ginger, nutmeg, milk, egg. 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.

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipes