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Winter Biles of Fare

A sweet raisin bread baked with molasses, spices, suet, eggs, milk, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Winter Biles of Fare

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Warm the molasses, suet, and spices slightly together.

  2. Stir hard until cool.

  3. Add the beaten eggs, milk, salt, flour, and the fruit dredged with flour.

  4. Beat well and pour into a buttered mold.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil or steam for nearly three hours.

  2. Turn out and serve hot.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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
Provides the body that holds the pudding together after steaming.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender.
Molasses
Adds dark sweetness and moisture to the batter.
Raisins
Add chewy pieces of fruit and sweetness throughout the pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses to help the pudding rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Boil or steam for nearly three hours. The pudding must cook gently and steadily for the full time so the eggs and flour set through the centre. Water that boils too hard or runs dry can leave the mold uneven or cause it to crack.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, molasses, cinnamon, milk, egg, 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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