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Dessert

Boiled College Pudding

A boiled pudding made with breadcrumbs, suet, currants, sultanas, candied peel, egg, milk, nutmeg, baking powder, and golden syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,685 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Boiled College Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine breadcrumbs, suet, currants, sultanas, nutmeg, and candied peel.

  2. Beat the egg and mix it with the Golden Syrup.

  3. Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients and moisten with milk if necessary. Mix well and pour into small greased molds or a greased basin.

Cook

  1. Boil for one hour.

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. Nutmeg + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Currant + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Currant + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,983 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Nutmeg and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Breadcrumbs
Provide the bulk and body that holds the pudding together.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Egg
Binds the mixture so it sets firmly when cooked.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking to lighten the pudding's texture.
Lyle's golden syrup
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the pudding brown slightly.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (nutmeg, egg, milk, syrup):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against nutmeg, egg, 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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