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Dessert

Boiled Puddings

A boiled pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, flour, bread crumbs, apples, sugar, candied orange rind, spices, brandy, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Boiled Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large bowl, mix the raisins, currants, suet, flour, bread crumbs, minced apples, sugar, candied orange rind, nutmeg, mace, and salt.

  2. Add the brandy and eggs, and beat the mixture well.

  3. Tie the mixture tightly in a thickly floured cloth.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the pudding in water for 3.5 hours.

  2. Serve with German sauce, wine sauce, or punch 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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  4. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 while boiling.
Suet
Adds richness and a moist, tender texture as it melts during cooking.
Flour
Provides structure so the pudding holds its shape in the cloth.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help give the pudding a soft, light body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the spices and brandy.

The step that matters

Tying the cloth tightly. A tight, well-floured cloth keeps the pudding compact and stops water from soaking in during the long boil, which would make it heavy and waterlogged.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, flour, bread, apple, sugar, orange, 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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