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Dessert

Steamed Fruit Pudding

A steamed pudding made with shredded wheat, whole wheat flour, suet, fruit, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Steamed Fruit Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix

  1. Combine the shredded wheat crumbs, whole wheat flour, sugar, chopped suet, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, chopped walnuts, nutmeg, sherry wine, shredded figs, shredded dates, chopped apple, and milk in a large bowl. Mix well until all ingredients are combined.

Steam

  1. Prepare a steamer with boiling water before placing the pudding in the kettle.

  2. Butter a pudding mold and place it on a trivet in the steamer.

  3. Steam the pudding for 2½ 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Wheat + walnuttop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together246 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  3. Walnut + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Wheat + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together537 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Cinnamon + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Shredded wheat crumbs
Provides the main body and structure of the pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Whole wheat flour
Adds bulk and a nutty flavour while helping set the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the pudding so it is light rather than dense.
Milk
Hydrates the dry crumbs and flour to form a spoonable batter.
Dates
Add natural sweetness and a soft, chewy texture.

The step that matters

Steam with boiling water already in the kettle. Starting with boiling water keeps the steam hot and constant from the beginning, so the pudding cooks evenly and stays moist. Cold or weak steam slows cooking and can leave the pudding heavy and wet inside.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wheat, flour, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, sherry, wine):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Chickpeafits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wheat, flour, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, sherry, wine. 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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