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Dessert

Steamed Fruit Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, bread crumbs, sugar, nuts, dates, figs, flour, spices, molasses, baking soda, sour cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Steamed Fruit Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the suet, bread crumbs, sugar, chopped nuts, chopped dates, chopped figs, flour, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and salt.

  2. In a separate bowl, combine the molasses, baking soda, and sour cream.

Make and steam the pudding

  1. Pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a buttered mold and steam for 3 hours.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Dates + figtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Fig + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together614 recipes

    Shared aroma: cinnamyl acetate (sweet aromatic, cinnamon).

  4. Fig + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  5. Dates + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together283 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist during long steaming.
Bread crumbs
Provides bulk and soft structure that holds the batter together.
Molasses
Adds dark sweetness and a deep, caramel-like flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and acidity that activates the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb.
Flour
Adds structure that helps the pudding hold its shape after steaming.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sugar, dates, fig, flour, cinnamon, clove):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Walnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, dates, fig, flour, cinnamon, clove. 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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