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Dessert

A Superior Raisin Pudding

A pudding made with stale bread crumbs, flour, suet, raisins, spices, sugar, candied citron, eggs, and milk or brandy, boiled for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

A Superior Raisin Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grate the stale bread crumbs finely and mix with flour.

  2. Add minced suet, raisins, salt, nutmeg, ginger, mace, sugar, candied citron, eggs, and milk or brandy.

  3. Stir and beat the mixture thoroughly.

Cook

  1. Pour into a thick, well-floured cloth and tie securely.

  2. Boil the pudding for 4 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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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 give the pudding its set structure as they cook.
Beef kidney suet
Adds richness and fat, keeping the pudding moist and tender as it cooks.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and lighten the texture, giving the pudding body.
Raisins
Provide sweetness and chewy bursts of fruit throughout the pudding.
All-purpose flour
Adds bulk and helps hold the pudding together as it boils.

The step that matters

Tie the cloth securely and well-floured. A thick, well-floured cloth keeps the pudding from sticking and lets it hold its shape. A loose tie lets water seep in during the long boil, making the pudding soggy.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, beef, raisin, nutmeg, ginger, sugar. 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 raisin pudding recipes

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