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Dessert

Suet Pudding

A steamed suet pudding made with suet, molasses, milk, flour, raisins, currants, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped suet, molasses, and sweet milk.

  2. Add the flour, raisins, currants, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves, then mix well.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam the pudding for 2 hours.

  3. Optionally, add citron or lemon peel for extra flavor.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it steams.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together after steaming.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and helps bind the batter into a smooth mixture.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy moisture to the finished pudding.

The step that matters

Steaming the pudding. Steam should be steady and the water should not run dry, since uneven or weak heat leaves the center dense and undercooked. Gentle, continuous steam cooks the batter evenly and keeps it moist.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, flour, raisin, cinnamon, allspice, clove. 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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