Skip to main content
Dessert

Victoria Pudding

A steamed suet pudding with apples, apricots, cherries, citron peel, and jam, served with brandy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Apple and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 777 recipes. Both carry gamma-undecalactone, which smells peach, sweet. The science ↓

Victoria Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mince the suet.

  2. In a large bowl, combine the suet, flour, breadcrumbs, chopped apples, citron peel, cherries, sugar, and apricot jam. Mix thoroughly.

  3. Moisten the mixture with the well-beaten eggs, cream or milk, and brandy.

Steam and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a buttered mold and steam for 2 hours.

  2. Once cooked, let it stand for 3 to 4 minutes, then carefully turn it out into a glass dish.

  3. Serve with brandy 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. Apple + apricottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together777 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).

  2. Apricot + brandytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Apple + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

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

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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 set into a firm, sliceable pudding as they cook.
Suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together after steaming.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding a light, soft crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds to its tender texture.

The step that matters

Steam and turn out. Steaming must be gentle and steady so the eggs set without the pudding becoming rubbery or watery. Letting it stand briefly before turning out helps it hold its shape and release cleanly from the mold.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, apricot, sugar, egg, cream, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, apricot, sugar, egg, cream, brandy. 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

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesApple CakeApple Cake80 recipesApple MeringueApple Meringue75 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipes