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Dessert

Steamed Suet Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, molasses, milk, flour, spices, raisins, nuts, citron, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Steamed Suet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. Mix the suet and molasses together in a large bowl.

  2. Sift the flour, spices, baking soda, and salt together three times.

  3. Add the sifted mixture to the suet and molasses alternately with the sweet milk.

  4. Fold in the floured raisins, chopped nuts, and floured citron.

  5. Stir in the boiling water with dissolved baking soda.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into baking powder cans, filling them only halfway, and place the tops on the cans.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Flour + raisintop 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 that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the pudding as it steams.
Dark molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and a deep flavor to the pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses and boiling water to lighten the batter.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Filling the cans only halfway. The batter rises as it steams and needs room to expand. Overfilling can make the pudding heavy or cause it to spill over the top.

Swap the pecans

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Pecansthe original

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