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Dessert

Essex Pudding

A steamed pudding made with sago, eggs, milk, breadcrumbs, suet, raisins, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Essex Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the sago in cold water overnight.

  2. The next day, place the sago in a flat stewpan with enough water to cover it and cook until soft and water is absorbed.

  3. Soak the raisins in boiling water for 2 minutes, then drain the raisins.

  4. Butter a pudding tin generously.

  5. Arrange the raisins in a pattern on the bottom and sides of the tin.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the sugar.

  2. Gradually add the milk to the egg-sugar mixture.

  3. Stir in the breadcrumbs and beat to form a batter.

  4. Add the chopped suet to the batter.

  5. Mix cornflour with a little cold milk, then add the cornflour mixture to the batter.

  6. Add the boiled sago to the batter.

  7. Sprinkle a pinch of salt into the batter and beat the batter vigorously.

Steam and serve

  1. Spoon the pudding mixture into the tin carefully to avoid disturbing the raisins.

  2. Cover the tin.

  3. Steam the pudding for 1.5 hours or boil for 1 hour.

  4. Dip the pudding in cold water for a minute.

  5. Turn the pudding out onto a hot dish.

  6. Serve with jelly sauce.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  3. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the pudding sets.
Breadcrumbs
Provide the body of the pudding, absorbing liquid to form a soft crumb.
Suet
Adds fat, giving a moist, rich texture to the steamed pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the savoury-free, rich batter.
Milk
Moistens the batter so the breadcrumbs and sago can soften and set.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy fruitiness to the finished pudding.

The step that matters

Spoon the pudding mixture into the tin carefully. Raisins arranged on the tin's sides and base form the pattern only if they stay put. Pouring or spooning roughly shifts them, spoiling the look and clumping fruit unevenly.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, milk, 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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