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Dessert

Belgian Pudding

A suet-based pudding with currants, sugar, candied peel, lemon, nutmeg, flour, bread crumbs, eggs, and milk, boiled for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Belgian Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix all ingredients together.

  2. Beat the mixture for 10 minutes.

  3. Let it stand for 30 minutes.

Steam and serve

  1. Butter a basin and pour in the pudding mixture.

  2. Tie a cloth dredged with flour over the basin.

  3. Place it in boiling water and boil for 3½ hours.

  4. Serve with sugar sifted 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.

  1. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

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

  5. Nutmeg + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 it set firm as it cooks.
Flour
Adds structure so the pudding holds its shape when steamed.
Bread crumbs
Soak up liquid and give the pudding a light, tender body.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps the batter bind with the eggs.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the richness of the suet.

The step that matters

Boil for 3½ hours. The pudding is steamed in boiling water for a long time. The water must stay at a steady boil and be topped up, or the pudding cooks unevenly and turns heavy.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, lemon, nutmeg, flour, bread, egg. 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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