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Dessert

Spice Pudding

A steamed pudding made from bread crumbs, flour, suet or butter, raisins, molasses, sweet milk, eggs, baking soda, salt, cloves, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Spice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine bread crumbs, flour, suet (or butter), raisins, molasses, sweet milk, eggs, baking soda, salt, cloves, and cinnamon in a large bowl, and mix well until all ingredients are combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  3. Steam the pudding for about 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help set the pudding's texture as it cooks.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to help the pudding rise and lighten.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture with a deep flavor.
Suet
Adds richness and fat, giving the pudding a tender, moist crumb.

The step that matters

Mixing the batter well. Thorough mixing distributes the baking soda evenly so it reacts consistently with the molasses. Unmixed pockets can leave dense spots or bitter patches in the finished pudding.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, butter, raisin, molasses, milk, egg. 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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