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Dessert

Ginger Pudding

A steamed pudding made with molasses, butter, eggs, ginger, flour, and a lemon‑scented sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ginger Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine molasses and boiling water.

  2. Add butter and egg yolks, mixing well.

  3. Stir in baking soda, ginger, sugar, and flour until smooth.

Steam and make the sauce

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold and steam for 1 hour.

  2. For the sauce, beat egg whites until stiff.

  3. Gradually add sugar, then mix in lemon juice and rind.

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. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and a rich, sweet flavor to the batter.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavor.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter into a smooth, set crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Flour
Provides structure as the batter sets during steaming.
Egg whites
Whipped until stiff to give the sauce a light, airy foam.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped to stiff peaks to trap air; under-beaten or greasy whites will not hold volume, leaving the sauce flat and dense.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, butter, egg, ginger, sugar, flour, sauce):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, butter, egg, ginger, sugar, flour, sauce. 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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