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Dessert

Sweet Puddings

A sweet pudding made with suet, grated bread, sugar, French plums, eggs, milk, and ratafia, boiled or baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Sweet Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Mix the suet, grated bread, sugar, French plums, beaten eggs, milk, and ratafia in a bowl.

  2. Let the mixture stand for 2 hours.

Cook

  1. Boil the mixture for 2 hours, stirring well at the end.

  2. Alternatively, you can bake the puddings.

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Plum + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together406 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Bread + plumtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help set the pudding as it cooks.
Grated bread
Provides body and absorbs the liquid to form a soft, cohesive pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that enriches the texture and keeps the pudding moist.
French plums
Supply fruit flavour and moisture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for 2 hours, stirring well at the end. Steady simmering cooks the eggs and starch through gently. Stirring at the end keeps the fruit and crumbs from settling and sticking to the base of the pot.

Swap the plum

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sugar, egg, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits better
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, egg, milk. 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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