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Dessert

Suet Pudding

A steamed pudding made with sweet milk, raisins, molasses, suet, flour, sugar, butter, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. Combine sweet milk, raisins, Orleans molasses, and a little salt in a bowl.

Steam

  1. Steam the mixture for 3 hours.

Finish the batter

  1. Mix sugar, flour, chopped suet, baking soda, and spices in another bowl.

  2. Beat all ingredients together.

  3. Gradually add boiling water until the mixture reaches the right consistency.

  4. Flavor with a little lemon extract.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it steams.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lifts the pudding.
Orleans molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, moisture, and a deep, rich flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown and taste rich.

The step that matters

Gradually add boiling water until the mixture reaches the right consistency. Flour absorbs liquid as it sits, so adding the water a little at a time lets you stop once the batter is right. Too much water makes the pudding loose and heavy, while too little leaves it stiff and dry.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, raisin, molasses, sugar, flour, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, raisin, molasses, sugar, flour, butter. 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.

More suet pudding recipes

Lemon 28Boiled 19Steamed 12Potato 11Apple 10Raisin 10 See all 649 →

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