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Dessert

Sultana Pudding

A boiled pudding made with breadcrumbs or flour, suet, sultanas, sugar, milk, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sultana Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Chop the suet and mix it with the breadcrumbs or flour.

  2. Add the sugar and cleaned sultanas, and mix well.

  3. Moisten the mixture with the milk and beaten egg, and mix thoroughly.

Cook

  1. Place the mixture in a damp, floured cloth, tie tightly, and boil for just over an 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 + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 rich and tender as it cooks.
Egg
Binds the mixture together and helps it set as it cooks.
Breadcrumbs or flour
Forms the body of the pudding that holds the other ingredients together.
Sultanas
Add sweetness and chewy fruit pieces throughout the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and a little moisture-holding softness to the pudding.

The step that matters

Tying the cloth tightly before boiling. A tight, damp floured cloth holds the mixture in shape and keeps water out. If it is loose, water can soak in and make the pudding soggy and falling apart.

“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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