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Dessert

Economical Christmas Pudding

A boiled, sugared fruit pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, bread crumbs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Economical Christmas Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ingredients

  1. Shred the mixed peel finely.

  2. Stone the raisins.

  3. Clean and dry the currants.

  4. Blanch and shred the sweet almonds.

  5. Blanch and shred the bitter almonds.

Mix the pudding

  1. In a large bowl, combine the bread crumbs and flour.

  2. Add the raisins, currants, suet, nutmeg, flour, old ale, bread crumbs, mixed peel, sweet almonds, bitter almonds, and salt.

  3. Stir the mixture well.

Boil and serve

  1. Grease the molds.

  2. Fill the molds completely.

  3. Cover the molds with foolscap paper.

  4. Tie the cloths tightly.

  5. Boil gently for 7 hours.

  6. Allow the pudding to cool.

  7. Dry the pudding without untying the cloths.

  8. Re-boil the pudding for 3 hours.

  9. Serve the pudding with cold flake 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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat and richness, keeping the pudding moist as it steams.
Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and structure that hold the pudding together.
Demerara sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses-like depth of flavour.
Old ale
Adds moisture and a malty, fermented depth of flavour.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.
Flour
Helps bind the mixture and thicken it slightly.

The step that matters

Tie the cloths tightly. Loose cloths let water seep into the pudding during the long boil, making it soggy and heavy. A snug wrap keeps moisture in and the shape firm.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, raisin, nutmeg, flour, bread, almond. 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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