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Dessert

Christmas Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, currants, suet, sugar, bread crumbs, eggs, citrus, almonds, and beer.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,781 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Christmas Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Combine raisins, currants, chopped beef suet, sugar, stale bread crumbs, eggs, sliced citron, blanched almonds, lemon rind, orange rind, and salt in a large bowl, then mix well and add enough beer to make the mixture stir easily.

  2. Transfer the mixture into a tightly lidded mold.

Cook

  1. Boil the mold in water for 5 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. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  2. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  4. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

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

  5. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 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

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set as it cooks.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the pudding body and a soft crumb.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give a rich, dark color.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.

The step that matters

Boil the mold in water for 5 hours. The mold must be tightly lidded and the water kept boiling steadily. Steady steam cooks the eggs and bread evenly, while a loose lid or drop in heat can leave the pudding wet or uneven.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, beef, sugar, bread, egg, almond, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, beef, sugar, bread, egg, almond, lemon. 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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