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Christmas Pudding Recipe

A steamed pudding made with flour, suet, dried fruit, spices, eggs, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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 Pudding Recipe

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mix the dry ingredients together in the order given.

  2. Add the moist ingredients separately and beat the mixture for ten minutes.

  3. Put the mixture into four greased basins.

Steam and serve

  1. Cover each basin with greased paper, then a cloth wrung out of boiling water and well floured.

  2. Tie securely and steam for seven hours at the time of making and three additional hours at the time of serving.

  3. Serve with sauce as desired.

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. Almond + raisintop 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. Nutmeg + raisintop 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

Eggs
Bind the mixture and add structure and richness as they set during steaming.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it steams.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and structure that hold the pudding together.
Demerara sugar
Adds sweetness and a deep, molasses-like flavor.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add body to the mixture.

The step that matters

Tie securely and steam. If the basins are not sealed tightly, steam and water can enter, making the pudding soggy and diluting its flavor. The long, steady steaming cooks the eggs and starch through gently so the pudding sets evenly.

Swap the currant

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

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

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