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 ↓
Economical Raisin Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Mix the chopped suet with the flour and raisins in a bowl.
Dissolve the baking soda in the milk and add it to the mixture.
Stir in the Lyle's Golden Syrup and beat well.
Boil and serve
Tie the mixture in a cloth and boil for two hours.
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.
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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Raisin + milktop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,155 recipes
Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).
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Flour + syruptop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,540 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Raisin + syruptop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together336 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
- Suet
- Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich in texture.
- Raisins
- Add sweetness and chewy pieces throughout the pudding.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the milk to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
- Milk
- Hydrates the flour and helps form a soft, moist batter.
- Lyle's golden syrup
- Adds sweetness and a caramel-like flavor and helps keep the pudding moist.
The step that matters
Tie the mixture in a cloth and boil for two hours. The cloth must be tied loosely enough to leave room for the pudding to expand, and the water must keep boiling so the pudding cooks through evenly. Letting the pot boil dry or the cloth seal too tightly can ruin the texture.
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, syrup):
- Vanillafits about as well
- Raisinthe original
- Figfits less well
- Blueberryfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, syrup. 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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