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Dessert

Carrot Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, sugar, raisins, carrots, potatoes, suet, treacle, currants, and candied peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Carrot Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. In a large bowl, combine the flour, brown sugar, raisins, mashed carrot, currants, mashed potatoes, suet, treacle, and candied peel.

  2. Mix well until all ingredients are thoroughly combined.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a pudding mold or a heatproof bowl.

Boil and serve

  1. Cover the mold with a cloth and secure it with string.

  2. Boil the pudding in a large pot of water for 4 hours.

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. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  5. Flour + carrottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 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
Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and gives it a rich texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and its molasses flavour deepens the pudding.
Mashed carrot
Adds moisture and body, along with natural sweetness and soft texture.
Mashed potatoes
Adds moisture and softness, helping the pudding stay tender when steamed.
Treacle
Adds sweetness, moisture and a dark, caramel-like flavour.

The step that matters

Securing the cloth and boiling for 4 hours. The mold must be tightly covered and the pot kept at a steady simmer with water topped up. Loose covering lets water seep in and the long boil dries or waterlogs the pudding.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, raisin, carrot, potato):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, raisin, carrot, potato. 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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