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Dessert

Christmas Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, molasses, flour, sugar, spices, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Christmas Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the raisins and pick over carefully.

  2. Place the raisins wet in a bowl to soak overnight with all other ingredients except flour and baking soda.

  3. Beat the mixture well.

Finish and steam

  1. The next morning, add the flour and baking soda.

  2. Beat again and stir together.

  3. Pour the mixture into a pudding basin or mold.

  4. Steam for 4 hours, ensuring the water in the steamer kettle is boiling and maintained throughout cooking.

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. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Raisins
Add chewy texture and natural sweetness to the pudding.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep, rich sweetness.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps give the pudding structure as it cooks.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the pudding as it steams and sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to help the pudding rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Keep the steamer kettle water boiling. If the water drops below a boil during the long steam, the pudding cooks unevenly and can turn heavy and wet. Steady steam transfers heat evenly around the basin, so the pudding sets through without collapsing.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, molasses, egg, flour, sugar, cinnamon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Allspicethe original
  4. Clovefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, molasses, egg, flour, sugar, cinnamon. 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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