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Dessert

Hunting Pudding

A rich pudding made with eggs, cream, flour, suet, currants, raisins, candied orange, citron, powdered sugar, nutmeg, and brandy, boiled for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Hunting Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Mix in the cream and flour until well combined.

  3. Add the chopped suet, currants, raisins, candied orange, citron, powdered sugar, and grated nutmeg.

  4. Stir in the brandy until fully incorporated.

Boil and serve

  1. Place the mixture in a cloth and tie it securely.

  2. Boil for 4 hours.

  3. Once done, turn it out onto a dish and sprinkle with powdered 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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 give the pudding its set structure when cooked.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and gives a rich texture.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy texture through the pudding.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the batter.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour while contributing a little moisture.

The step that matters

Securing the cloth and boiling for 4 hours. If the cloth is not tied tightly, water can enter the pudding and make it soggy, while the long, steady boil is needed for the flour and eggs to set fully through the centre.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, flour, beef, raisin, orange, sugar. 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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