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College Puddings

College Puddings are small suet rolls with sugar, bread crumbs, currants, fried or boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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College Puddings

Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

College Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. In a bowl, mix the chopped suet, sifted sugar, bread crumbs, and currants until well combined.

Shape and cook

  1. Using your hands, form the mixture into small rolls with minimal flour.

  2. Fry the rolls in lard until golden brown.

  3. They can also be boiled if preferred.

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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Bread + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Bread + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,383 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Currant + flourtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,077 recipes
  5. Sugar + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

Bread and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,383 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
Provides fat that melts during cooking, keeping the puddings moist and rich.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the rolls body so they hold their shape.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the outside brown when fried.
Flour
Light dusting that keeps the rolls from sticking to the hands.

The step that matters

Using minimal flour when shaping the rolls. Too much flour dries the surface and makes the rolls tough and pasty, while too little may leave them sticking to your hands. Keeping flour light helps the rolls stay tender and brown evenly.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, bread, flour. 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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