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Dessert

Suet Pudding

A steamed suet pudding made with sour milk, molasses, sugar, raisins, flour, and suet.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine sour milk, molasses, sugar, suet, raisins, and flour.

  2. Dissolve baking soda in a small amount of boiling water and add to the mixture.

  3. Season with salt, cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg to your taste.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for 3 hours until cooked through.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender during steaming.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and a rich flavor to the pudding.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds tenderness to the batter.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda. Baking soda must be fully dissolved before it is added so it reacts evenly through the batter. Unevenly distributed soda can leave bitter pockets or dense spots in the finished pudding.

Swap the clove

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

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

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