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Dessert

The Author's Christmas Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, breadcrumbs, suet, dried fruit, apples, sugar, candied orange rind, spices, brandy, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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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 ↓

The Author's Christmas Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix

  1. In a large bowl, combine flour, bread crumbs, suet, raisins, currants, apples, sugar, candied orange rind, nutmeg, mace, and salt.

  2. Add the brandy and eggs, then mix and beat the ingredients well together.

Cook and serve

  1. Tie the mixture tightly in a thickly floured cloth.

  2. Boil the pudding in water for 3.5 hours.

  3. Serve with German sauce, wine sauce, or punch 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Currant + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and add structure as the pudding sets while boiling.
Suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist during long cooking.
Flour
Provides structure so the pudding holds its shape after boiling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help give the pudding a light, tender body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the dried fruit taste rounded.

The step that matters

Tying the cloth. The cloth must be tied tightly and well floured so the pudding keeps its shape and the floured surface forms a skin that releases cleanly. Loose wrapping lets water in and can make the pudding heavy and soggy.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, bread, beef, raisin, apple, sugar, orange):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Cranberryfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, bread, beef, raisin, apple, sugar, orange. 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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