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 ↓
Suet Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Chop the suet as fine as possible.
Mix the suet with the milk and molasses.
Sift in the flour and ground cloves.
Dredge the raisins and currants with flour, then add them to the mixture.
Mix the cream of tartar and baking soda with a little milk, then add to the batter.
Steam and serve
Steam for three hours and serve with a hot 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 + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Clove + raisintop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,070 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
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Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,180 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Suet
- Adds richness and moisture, keeping the pudding tender as it steams.
- Molasses
- Adds sweetness, dark colour and a moist, dense texture.
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the structure of the pudding as the batter sets.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the cream of tartar to lighten the batter and help it rise.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter so it reacts with the baking soda to produce rising gas.
The step that matters
Mix the cream of tartar and baking soda with a little milk, then add to the batter.. Baking soda and cream of tartar must react in the batter while it is still mixing and steaming, so adding them late and mixing gently keeps the gas bubbles that lighten the pudding.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, molasses, milk, flour, cream, clove, raisin):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, molasses, milk, flour, cream, clove, 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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