Why it works: Flour and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,341 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
A Suet Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the pudding
Boil the milk and pour it over the bread crumbs.
Once cool, stir in the beaten eggs, suet, flour, nuts, and cinnamon.
Pour the mixture into a cloth bag and tie it securely.
Boil the bag for 2 hours.
Serve
Serve with sauce.
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 + cinnamontop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,341 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,655 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Nuts + cinnamontop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together487 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Flour + nutstop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,180 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
- Suet
- Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
- Bread crumbs
- Soak up the hot milk to form the body of the pudding.
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and help it set firm when cooked.
- All-purpose flour
- Adds starch that thickens the mixture and gives it structure.
The step that matters
Tie the cloth bag securely. If the bag is loose or leaks, water enters the pudding and it becomes soggy and waterlogged instead of set and moist.
Swap the nuts
The recipe marks nuts as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, egg, flour, cinnamon):
- Almondfits better
- Chestnutfits better
- Chickpeafits better
- Nutsthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, egg, flour, 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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