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Dessert

Raisin Pudding, Boiled

A boiled pudding made with flour, bread crumbs, sugar, raisins, treacle, candied peel, egg, milk, baking powder, and spice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Raisin Pudding, Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. Mix the flour, bread crumbs, sugar, baking powder, spice, and raisins in a bowl.

  2. In another bowl, whisk the egg and milk together, then add to the dry ingredients.

  3. Stir in the treacle and candied peel until well combined.

Boil and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a basin and boil for four hours, or shape it and boil in a cloth for three hours.

  2. Serve warm.

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Forms the main structure of the pudding as it cooks.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set firm as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Add body and absorb moisture, giving the pudding a soft, tender crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking, helping the pudding rise and lighten.
Raisins
Add sweetness, chewy texture and concentrated fruit flavour.
Treacle
Adds sweetness, moisture and a deep, caramel-like flavour.

The step that matters

Boiling for the full time. The pudding must boil steadily for the whole stated time so the batter cooks through and sets. Cutting the time short leaves it dense and wet in the centre, while the water must stay at a steady simmer so the pudding is not waterlogged.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, bread, sugar, egg, milk. 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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