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Dessert

Thanksgiving Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, figs, bread crumbs, milk, eggs, sugar, spices, raisins, walnuts, flour, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Thanksgiving Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the suet and work it until creamy.

  2. Soak the stale bread crumbs in the milk.

Mix and steam

  1. Combine the soaked bread crumbs with the suet, figs, eggs, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

  2. Add the raisins and walnuts mixed with flour and baking powder.

  3. Turn the mixture into a mold and steam for 5 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Fig + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together614 recipes

    Shared aroma: cinnamyl acetate (sweet aromatic, cinnamon).

  4. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

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

  5. Fig + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together510 recipes

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

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 as they set during steaming.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and give the pudding a soft, sponge-like body.
Suet
Adds richness and fat, keeping the pudding moist and tender.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses-like depth of flavour.
Baking powder
Releases gas that helps the pudding rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Turn the mixture into a mold and steam for 5 hours. Steaming gently and steadily cooks the eggs and starch through without drying the pudding. Keep the water at a simmer and topped up so the pudding cooks evenly and stays moist.

Swap the fig

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, egg, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, raisin):

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Figthe original
  3. Lemonfits less well
  4. Applefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, egg, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, 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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