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Dessert

Steamed Carrot Pudding

A steamed pudding made with bread crumbs, grated carrot, grated potato, flour, molasses, raisins, currants, suet, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Steamed Carrot Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grate the carrot and potato.

  2. In a bowl, combine the bread crumbs, grated carrot, grated potato, and suet.

Make the batter

  1. Sift the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg together, then add to the mixture.

  2. Stir in the molasses, raisins, and currants, dredging with a little extra flour if needed.

Steam

  1. Transfer the mixture to a well-buttered mold and steam for four 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. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Carrot + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together981 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 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

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to help the pudding rise and lighten.
Bread crumbs
Absorbs liquid and gives the pudding a tender, body-filled structure.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch that sets the pudding and gives it structure.
Grated carrot
Adds moisture and sweetness, giving the pudding its dense, tender texture.

The step that matters

Steaming the mold. Steaming for the full time cooks the dense batter through gently. Water in the pot must be kept steadily simmering, since a lower or uneven heat leaves the center heavy and underbaked.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, carrot, potato, flour, molasses, raisin, cinnamon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, carrot, potato, flour, molasses, raisin, cinnamon. 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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