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Dessert

Hunters Pudding

A suet and flour fruit pudding with currants, raisins, lemon rind, Jamaica pepper, eggs, brandy, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Hunters Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the suet, flour, currants, raisins, lemon rind, Jamaica peppers, eggs, brandy, salt, and enough milk to achieve a proper consistency.

  2. Place the mixture in a floured cloth or melon mould.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil for 8 to 9 hours.

  2. Serve with sweet sauce and add a spoonful of peach water for flavor variation.

Store and reheat

  1. To store, let it cool, tie it in a cloth, and hang it up wrapped in cap paper to keep dust away.

  2. When ready to use, boil for 1 hour.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

  5. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

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

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 dense pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Flour
Its starch gelatinises when heated, giving the pudding its body and structure.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set as they heat, holding the pudding together.
Raisins
Add sweetness and moisture, and soften during the long boil.
Currants
Add sweetness and moisture, and soften during the long boil.
Jamaica peppers
Add warm, aromatic spice flavour throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil for 8 to 9 hours. The flour starch and eggs only set once the dense mixture is heated through. A long, steady boil cooks the centre fully, so a short or weak boil leaves the pudding heavy and undercooked.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, raisin, lemon, pepper, egg, brandy, milk):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, raisin, lemon, pepper, egg, brandy, milk. 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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