Name: Carrot Pudding
Ingredients: ¾ pound carrots; ½ pound bread crumbs; ¼ pound stoned raisins; 4 ounces suet, finely chopped; a little nutmeg; 3 ounces sugar, powdered; 3 eggs; milk; butter for greasing

Why it works: Raisin and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Carrot Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Boil the carrots until tender, then pulp them.
Mix the pulped carrots with bread crumbs, raisins, suet, nutmeg, and powdered sugar.
Beat the eggs and combine with enough milk to create a thick batter.

Bake and serve

Pour the mixture into a buttered pie dish.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for one hour.
Once done, turn it out and sift sugar over the top.

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.

Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Carrot + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,424 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots: Provide the bulk and soft, moist body of the pudding once pulped.
Eggs: Bind the mixture and help it set firm as it bakes.
Bread crumbs: Absorb liquid and give the pudding structure and a light, soft crumb.
Suet: Adds richness and fat, giving a moist, tender texture.
Sugar: Sweetens the pudding and adds a sweet finish on top.

Swap the carrot

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

Sweet potatofits better
Shallotfits better
Potatofits better
Carrotthe original

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