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Dessert

Suet Pudding, No. 3

A steamed suet pudding with raisins, molasses, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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, No. 3

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Steam the suet or pork until slightly fried.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine chopped raisins, suet or pork, sweet milk, molasses, baking soda, and flour. Mix well until combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for 2 hours.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pork + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Forms the bulk and structure of the pudding as it sets.
Suet or pork
Adds fat and richness, keeping the pudding moist and tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses to lighten the pudding as it steams.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and a deep flavour.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy pockets of fruit through the pudding.

“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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