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Dessert

Golden Pudding

A steamed suet pudding flavored with molasses, spices, raisins, and served with a brown sugar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Golden Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a large bowl, mix the suet, molasses, sour milk, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, raisins, flour, and salt until well combined.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a greased pudding mold and steam for two hours.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, beat together the butter, brown sugar, egg, water, and milk in a double boiler.

  2. Cook the sauce for 5 to 10 minutes until thickened and flavored.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat and richness, keeping the pudding moist and tender as it steams.
Molasses
Adds dark sweetness and moisture, and gives the pudding its golden-brown colour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release gas, helping the pudding rise and lighten.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Egg
Binds the sauce and helps it thicken as it cooks.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce gently over a double boiler. The egg in the sauce can scramble if it gets too hot. A double boiler heats it gently, so it thickens smoothly instead of curdling.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, raisin, flour, butter):

  1. Clovefits about as well
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Allspicethe original
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, raisin, flour, butter. 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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