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Christmas Puddings for the Poor

A traditional Christmas pudding made with flour, bread, suet, currants, raisins, treacle, mixed spice, eggs, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Christmas Puddings for the Poor

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ingredients

  1. Make bread crumbs from the bread.

  2. Chop the suet.

  3. Wash the currants and dry them with a clean cloth.

  4. Stone the raisins and beat the eggs.

Mix and wrap

  1. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and stir well.

  2. Dip pudding cloths in boiling water and dust with flour.

  3. Place the pudding mixture into the cloths, tie them securely, and boil in water for 4 to 8 hours.

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. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm as it cooks.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich in texture.
Bread
Crumbs add body and soak up moisture for a tender crumb.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy fruit texture throughout the pudding.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy fruit texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Boiling the pudding for 4 to 8 hours. The pudding must be fully submerged and kept at a steady boil so heat penetrates evenly and the mixture cooks through without going soggy or undercooked. Securely tied cloths stop water seeping in and diluting the flavour.

Swap the currant

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

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

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