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 ↓
Carrot Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Mix and sift the flour, baking soda, and salt.
Add the suet, raisins, currants, sugar, grated potato, and grated carrot; mix well and stir until all ingredients are well blended.
Steam the mixture as you would for a suet pudding.
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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Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,107 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
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Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,180 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
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Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Flour + carrottop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,029 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
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the pudding as it sets.
- Suet
- Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender while steaming.
- Baking soda
- Helps the batter rise and lighten as it cooks.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps with browning.
- Grated carrot
- Adds moisture and natural sweetness to the pudding.
The step that matters
Steam the mixture as you would for a suet pudding. Steaming cooks the pudding gently with moist heat, so it stays tender and does not dry out. The water must keep boiling steadily and the pudding must stay covered, or the texture will turn heavy and dry.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, raisin, sugar, potato, carrot):
- Figfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Orangefits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, raisin, sugar, potato, carrot. 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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