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Dessert

Carrot Pudding

A steamed pudding made from mashed carrots, suet, sultanas, bread crumbs, sugar, nutmeg, eggs, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,424 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Carrot Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Mix the mashed carrots with the bread crumbs, suet, sultanas, sugar, and nutmeg.

  2. Add the eggs and enough milk to achieve a thick batter consistency.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a pudding mold.

  2. Boil for 3 hours.

  3. Serve with castor sugar sprinkled on top.

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. Carrot + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Nutmeg + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Provide the main bulk and moisture, giving the pudding its soft, dense body.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add body, helping the pudding hold its shape.
Suet
Adds richness and fat, keeping the pudding moist and tender.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding a tender texture.

The step that matters

Achieving the right batter consistency. Enough milk must be added to form a thick batter. Too little leaves the pudding dry and crumbly, while too much makes it wet and heavy after boiling.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, nutmeg, 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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