Skip to main content
Dessert

Suet Pudding

A steamed sweet pudding made with suet, molasses, brown sugar, milk, flour, spices, raisins, and figs or dates.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine suet, molasses, brown sugar, milk, flour, baking soda, raisins, salt, ginger, cloves, spice, nutmeg, cinnamon, and figs or dates in a large bowl, then mix until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for 3 hours.

  2. Serve with Foamy 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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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 gives it a rich, tender crumb.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and moisture, and a deep flavor.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and a caramel note.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam for 3 hours. Steaming gently and steadily cooks the batter through without drying it. If the water boils dry or the steam drops, the pudding can turn out dense or undercooked in the centre.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, milk, flour, raisin, clove, nutmeg. 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 →

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesMolasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipes