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Dessert

Raisin Pudding, Baked

A baked pudding made with bread crumbs, flour, suet, raisins, baking powder, nutmeg, egg, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Raisin Pudding, Baked

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Mix the bread crumbs, flour, suet (or dripping), raisins, baking powder, and nutmeg in a bowl.

  2. If using dripping, rub it into the flour until fine.

  3. In another bowl, beat the egg and milk together, then add to the dry ingredients.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until cooked through.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the pudding rises and turns lighter.
Suet or dripping
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender.
Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and body of the pudding.
Flour
Adds structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.

The step that matters

Rubbing dripping into the flour until fine. If the fat is not rubbed in evenly, it forms lumps instead of coating the flour, so fat is unevenly distributed and the texture turns patchy and greasy in places.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, raisin, egg, 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.

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