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Dessert

Guernsey Pudding

A steamed suet and flour pudding with currants, raisins, eggs, spices, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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 ↓

Guernsey Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Shred the suet, chop it finely, and rub it through the flour.

  2. Wash, pick, and dry the currants; seed the raisins and dredge them with flour.

  3. Beat the eggs until thick and light, then add enough milk to form a batter.

  4. Stir in the eggs, spices, salt, and finally the fruit.

Boil and serve

  1. Dip a pudding bag in cold water, flour it well, then pour in the batter.

  2. Tie the bag securely, leaving space for the pudding to swell.

  3. Boil a pot of water with a plate at the bottom to prevent the bag from touching.

  4. Place the pudding in the pot and boil for 2.5 hours.

  5. Add boiling water as needed during the cooking.

  6. Once done, dip the bag in cold water.

  7. Untie the bag.

  8. Turn the pudding out onto a dish.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  4. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during long boiling.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the pudding as it cooks.
Dried currants
Add concentrated fruit sweetness and chew throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Leaving room in the bag and keeping the water boiling. The pudding swells as it cooks, so the bag must be tied with space to expand. Keeping the water at a steady boil and topping it up preserves even heat, and the plate keeps the bag off the pot bottom where it could scorch.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, raisin, egg, nutmeg, cinnamon, 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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