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Dessert

Delhi Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, suet, apples, raisins, and a sweetened lemon rind mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Delhi Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Stone and halve the raisins.

  2. Pare, core, and slice the apples.

  3. Mix the flour, suet, baking powder, and salt.

  4. Add cold water to form a smooth, stiff paste.

  5. Divide the paste into 2 equal portions.

Assemble the pudding

  1. Line a basin with one portion.

  2. Roll out the second portion thinly to form a lid.

  3. Layer apple slices in the basin.

  4. Add some raisins.

  5. Sprinkle with a mixture of sugar, lemon rind, and nutmeg.

  6. Cut a round from the rolled-out paste to cover the fruit.

  7. Moisten the edges with water and seal to the basin.

  8. Repeat layering with remaining apples and raisins.

  9. Sprinkle with sugar mixture each time.

  10. Cover the final layer with pastry.

Cover and steam

  1. Cover the basin with greased paper.

  2. Steam for 3 hours.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the main structure of the paste that encloses the fruit.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the paste tender and rich rather than dry.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lightens the paste as it heats.
Apples
Supply moisture and a tart flavour that balances the sweetness.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy moisture within the layers.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deeper, caramel-like flavour to the fruit.

The step that matters

Adding the cold water to the paste. The paste should be smooth and stiff. Too much water makes the suet crust slack and soggy, so it cannot hold its shape around the fruit or seal properly to the basin during steaming.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, raisin, lemon, sugar, 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.

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