Skip to main content
Dessert

A Superior Raisin Pudding

A pudding made with stale bread crumbs, flour, suet, raisins, spices, sugar, candied citron, eggs, and milk or brandy, boiled for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

A Superior Raisin Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Grate the stale bread crumbs finely and mix with flour, suet, raisins, salt, nutmeg, ginger, mace, sugar, candied citron, eggs, and milk or brandy, then stir and beat the mixture thoroughly.

  2. Pour the mixture into a thick, well-floured cloth.

Cook

  1. Boil the pudding for 4 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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 as it cooks.
All-purpose flour
Adds body and helps hold the pudding together.
Beef kidney suet
Adds richness and a moist, tender texture.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the pudding a light, crumbly body.
Stoned raisins
Provide sweetness, chew, and concentrated fruit flavor.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps round out the spices.

The step that matters

Wrapping the pudding in the cloth. The cloth must be thick and well floured so the pudding keeps its shape and does not stick or leak while boiling. Flour forms a barrier that helps a crust develop on the outside.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

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

More raisin pudding recipes

Steamed 49Baked 27Molasses 21Boiled 9Orange 6Apple 5 See all 88 →

You might also like

Soft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesGingerbreadGingerbread25 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesGinger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipes