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Dessert

Marmalade Pudding

A steamed pudding made with orange marmalade, breadcrumbs, beef suet, eggs, baking powder, milk, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Beef and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,759 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Marmalade Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the suet, breadcrumbs, baking powder, and a pinch of salt together.

  2. Beat the eggs.

  3. Add the marmalade, mixing well.

  4. Stir the egg mixture into the dry ingredients.

  5. Beat the mixture lightly.

  6. Add a little milk if it is too stiff.

Steam and serve

  1. Turn the mixture into a greased basin or mold.

  2. Cover with greased paper.

  3. Steam for 2 to 2.5 hours.

  4. Serve with a suitable 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. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  2. Orange + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Orange + beeftop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together960 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Orange + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Orange and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,696 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

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set into a firm, sliceable pudding as it steams.
Breadcrumbs
Provide the bulk and body that hold the pudding together.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the steamed pudding moist and rich.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lightens the pudding and helps it rise.
Orange marmalade
Adds sweetness, orange flavour and moisture to the pudding.

The step that matters

Add the milk only if needed. Breadcrumbs soak up liquid gradually, so adding milk too early can make the batter loose and heavy. Add it only when the mixture is too stiff to combine, then beat lightly so the batter stays light.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, egg, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, egg, 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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