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Dessert

Chocolate Steamed Pudding

A steamed chocolate pudding made with butter, flour, sugar, baking powder, egg, chocolate, milk, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chocolate Steamed Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl.

  2. Add the sugar and beaten egg, mixing well.

  3. Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder.

  4. Add the dry ingredients alternately with the milk to the butter mixture.

  5. Melt the chocolate and stir it into the batter.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a mold.

  2. Steam for 2 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps give it structure and richness.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the batter so the pudding rises.
Milk
Adds moisture that loosens the batter and keeps the crumb soft.
Chocolate
Gives the pudding its chocolate flavor and color.

The step that matters

Add the dry ingredients alternately with the milk. Adding flour and milk in alternating portions keeps the batter smooth and well combined. Adding it all at once can overwork the flour and create lumps, which affects the final texture.

“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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