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Dessert

Boiled Puddings

A boiled pudding made with flour, bread crumbs, suet, raisins, currants, apples, sugar, candied orange rind, spices, brandy, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Boiled Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the flour, bread crumbs, suet, raisins, currants, apples, sugar, candied orange rind, nutmeg, mace, and salt.

  2. Add the brandy and eggs, and beat the mixture well until combined.

Boil and serve

  1. Tie the mixture tightly in a thickly floured cloth.

  2. Boil the pudding in a pot of water for 3.5 hours.

  3. Serve with German, wine, or punch 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  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 add structure as the pudding sets during boiling.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch structure that holds the pudding together.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and lighten the texture of the dense pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the fruit and brandy.

The step that matters

Tying the cloth. If the cloth is not tied tightly and well floured, water can seep in and make the pudding soggy, and the floured surface helps form a skin that holds its shape.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Cranberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, bread, raisin, apple, sugar, orange, 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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