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Dessert

Snowdon Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, sugar, bread crumbs, lemon rind and juice, eggs, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Snowdon Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the suet, sugar, bread crumbs, lemon rind, lemon juice, and beaten eggs until well combined.

Assemble and steam

  1. Line a mold with the halved raisins.

  2. Pour the mixture into the prepared mold.

  3. Steam the pudding 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. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

  3. Lemon + raisintop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Bread + raisintop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,111 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding a soft, light body.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set as the pudding heats, giving it structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown slightly at the edges.
Lemon
Rind adds aroma and juice adds brightness that balances the richness.

The step that matters

Steaming for 5 hours. A long, gentle steam cooks the eggs and crumbs evenly so the pudding sets without drying out. The steaming water must not boil dry, or the pudding will scorch or turn dense at the edges.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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