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Dessert

Suet Pudding

A suet pudding made with molasses, sweet milk, flour, fruit, and baking soda, served hot with a powdered sugar, butter, egg white, and vanilla sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a large bowl, combine the suet, molasses, sweet milk, flour, fruit, and baking soda, then mix until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  3. Steam for 2 hours.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, cream together the powdered sugar and butter.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the egg white until stiff peaks form.

  3. Gently fold the egg white and vanilla into the creamed mixture.

Serve

  1. Serve the pudding hot with the 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.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender while steaming.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness to the pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acid to lighten the pudding and help it rise.
Egg white
Whipped into the sauce to add air, giving it a light, fluffy texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg white. Whipped egg white holds air that gives the sauce its lightness. Stirring vigorously deflates it, so fold gently and only until just combined.

Swap the vanilla

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, milk, flour, sugar, sauce, butter, egg):

  1. Raisinfits about as well
  2. Vanillathe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Peachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, flour, sugar, sauce, butter, egg. 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.

More suet pudding recipes

Lemon 28Boiled 19Steamed 12Potato 11Apple 10Raisin 10 See all 649 →

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