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Dessert

Malta Pudding

A steamed pudding made of suet paste and alternating layers of jam, served with sweet sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and raspberry match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 254 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Malta Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Line a mold with suet paste.

  2. Place 1 tablespoon of apricot or greengage jam at the bottom.

  3. Cover with a piece of paste.

  4. Add 1 tablespoon of raspberry or strawberry jam.

  5. Cover again with a round of paste.

  6. Repeat layering until the mold is filled.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for 2 hours.

  2. Serve with sweet 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Apricot + raspberrytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together254 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Apricot + saucetop 21% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together152 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Raspberry + saucetop 23% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together109 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet paste
Forms the pudding's crust and encloses the jam layers while it steams.
Apricot or greengage jam
Adds fruity sweetness and moisture to the layers as it softens during steaming.
Raspberry or strawberry jam
Adds bright, sweet-tart fruit flavour and moisture between the paste layers.

Flavor stand-ins for the raspberry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apricot, sauce):

  1. Plumbetter flavor fit
  2. Peachbetter flavor fit
  3. Applebetter flavor fit
  4. Raspberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apricot, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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