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Dessert

Sultana and Crumb Pudding

A steamed pudding made with bread crumbs, suet, flour, sultanas, sugar, milk, egg, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sultana and Crumb Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Combine bread crumbs, suet, flour, sultanas, sugar, and salt in a large bowl.

  2. In another bowl, mix milk, egg, and baking powder.

  3. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix well.

  4. If desired, add grated nutmeg for flavor.

Steam and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for about 2 hours or until cooked through.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  4. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Form the bulk of the pudding and absorb the liquid to give it body.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Flour
Provides structure so the pudding holds its shape after steaming.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps set the pudding as it cooks.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking so the pudding rises and turns lighter.
Sultanas
Add sweetness and chewy pockets of fruit throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steaming the pudding. Steam for the full time, checking that the pudding is cooked through. Gentle, steady steam cooks the batter evenly without drying it out, while cutting the time short leaves the centre raw and dense.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, flour, sugar, milk, egg):

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, sugar, milk, 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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