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Dessert

College Puddings

A suet and currant pudding baked or fried, flavored with nutmeg, ginger, and optional brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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College Puddings

Why it works: Nutmeg and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,324 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

College Puddings

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.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs together in a quart basin until smooth.

  2. Add flour, nutmeg, ginger, and sugar; mix into a smooth batter.

  3. Stir in suet and currants until well combined.

  4. If desired, add brandy or white wine for flavor.

Bake or fry and serve

  1. For baking, preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C) and add an extra egg or milk.

  2. Pour the mixture into patty pans and bake for 20 minutes.

  3. For frying, heat butter or lard and fry until light brown, then roll in a little flour.

  4. Serve with white wine 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during cooking.
Flour
Gives the batter body so the pudding holds its shape.
Suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking or frying.
Currants
Provide chewy pockets of fruit sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Frying until light brown. Frying in hot butter or lard browns the outside through the Maillard reaction, adding flavor. Too little heat leaves the pudding pale and greasy, while too much browns the outside before the centre sets.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, nutmeg, ginger, sugar, brandy, butter):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, nutmeg, ginger, sugar, brandy, butter. 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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