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Dessert

Rolled Jam Pudding

A rolled pudding made with flour, butter, jam, and lemon peel, boiled and served with cream or butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Rolled Jam Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pudding

  1. Roll out the flour and butter or suet into a thin paste.

  2. Spread a layer of jam over the paste, leaving an inch from the edge.

  3. Roll the paste tightly into a long pudding, sealing the edges well.

  4. Tie the pudding securely in a cloth at both ends.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil in water for 1.5 to 2 hours, depending on size.

  2. Serve with cream or melted butter.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the paste that wraps the jam and holds the pudding's shape while boiling.
Butter or suet
Adds fat that makes the paste tender and rich as it cooks.
Jam
Provides sweetness and fruity flavor that soaks slightly into the surrounding paste.

The step that matters

Sealing and tying the roll. If the edges are not sealed well or the cloth is loose, water can seep in and the jam can leak out, leaving a soggy, watery pudding.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter. 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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