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 ↓
Spotted Dick
Ingredients
Directions
Make the pudding
Chop the suet and mix it with the dry ingredients.
Add enough water to form a thick paste that can be rolled out.
Roll out the paste and fold it over, then place it in a pudding cloth.
Cook
Boil for 1 hour.
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.
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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 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
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the pudding once it is moistened and cooked.
- Suet
- Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it cooks.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas that helps the pudding rise and become light.
- Sultanas or raisins
- Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
The step that matters
Add enough water to form a thick paste. The paste must be firm enough to roll out but not sticky or runny. Too much water makes the pudding heavy and dense, while too little leaves it dry and crumbly after boiling.
“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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