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Dessert

Delicious Boiled Pudding

A boiled pudding made from bread, suet, molasses, raisins, sweet milk, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Delicious Boiled Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the chopped bread, suet (or butter), molasses, egg, raisins, sweet milk, baking soda, cloves, cinnamon, mace, and salt until thoroughly combined.

  2. Transfer the mixture into a buttered mold.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil the mold in water for 2 hours.

  2. Serve with foamy sauce.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Light bread
Provides the body of the pudding, soaking up the liquid to form a soft crumb.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and dark color, along with a deep, slightly bitter flavor.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set firm as it cooks.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness throughout the pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to help the pudding rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Keeping the mold submerged while boiling. If the water level drops and the mold is exposed, the steam cooks the pudding unevenly and it can dry out or turn heavy. Steady gentle boiling keeps the heat even throughout the two hours.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Cardamomfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, molasses, egg, raisin, milk, cinnamon. 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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