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Dessert

Soyer’s New Christmas Pudding

A steamed Christmas pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, sugar, flour, bread crumbs, almonds, candied citron, lemon peel, eggs, brandy, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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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 ↓

Soyer’s New Christmas Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare all ingredients separately before mixing the pudding.

  2. In a basin, combine the raisins, sultanas, currants, suet, sugar, flour, bread crumbs, almonds, nutmeg, candied citron, and lemon peel.

  3. Break the eggs over the mixture and add the brandy.

  4. Mix well and cover until the next morning.

  5. The next day, add the milk and stir the pudding well.

Boil and serve

  1. Butter a cloth lightly and sprinkle with flour.

  2. Place the cloth in a basin and pour in the pudding mixture.

  3. Tie the cloth securely but not too tight.

  4. Place in a pot with ½ gallon of boiling water, adding more water as needed to maintain the level.

  5. Simmer for 2 hours and 30 minutes.

  6. Remove from the cloth and serve on a hot dish.

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. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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 add structure as the pudding sets during boiling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the brandy and milk, giving the pudding a soft, moist body.
Beef suet
Adds fat that gives the pudding richness and a tender texture.
Flour
Helps bind the mixture and give it body as it cooks.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Tie the cloth securely but not too tight. A cloth tied too tightly restricts the pudding as it expands while cooking, while a loose cloth lets water seep in and dilute the mixture. Keeping the water level topped up keeps the pudding cooking evenly.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, beef, sugar, flour, bread, almond, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, beef, sugar, flour, bread, almond, nutmeg. 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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