Skip to main content
Dessert

Hunters’ Pudding

A suet and flour pudding with currants, raisins, lemon zest, allspice, eggs, brandy, and milk, boiled for hours.

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

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 ↓

Hunters’ Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large bowl, mix the suet, flour, currants, raisins, lemon zest, ground allspice, eggs, brandy, and salt.

  2. Add just enough milk to achieve a proper consistency.

  3. Place the mixture in a floured cloth or melon mold.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil for 8 to 9 hours.

  2. Serve with sweet sauce.

  3. For a change of flavor, add a spoonful of peach water.

Store and reheat

  1. To store, keep tied in the cloth and hung up in a cool place for up to 6 months.

  2. When ready to use, boil for 1 hour.

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. Lemon + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  5. Raisin + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,475 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

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during long boiling.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the fruit and binds the pudding together.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm as it cooks.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy moisture throughout the pudding.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy moisture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil for 8 to 9 hours. The pudding must cook for a very long time so the starch sets fully and the suet melts evenly. Keep the cloth or mold fully submerged and topped up with water so the pudding cooks through without drying out or turning heavy.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, currant, raisin, allspice, egg, brandy, milk):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Blackberryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, currant, raisin, allspice, egg, brandy, milk. 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

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipes