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Steamed Peach Pudding

A steamed pudding made with a flour and butter dough and sliced peaches.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Steamed Peach Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Boil water vigorously in a kettle.

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

  3. Rub in the butter and add the milk to form a soft dough.

Assemble and steam

  1. Peel, stone, and slice the peaches thickly.

  2. Grease a pudding dish with butter and place the sliced peaches inside.

  3. Drop spoonfuls of the dough over the peaches.

  4. Set the dish in a steamer over the boiling water and cover.

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. Milk + peachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together781 recipes

    Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + peachtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together860 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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
Forms the main structure of the dough once mixed with liquid.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to add tenderness and richness to the dough.
Milk
Moistens the flour to form a soft dough.
Baking powder
Releases gas that helps the dough rise and become light.
Peaches
Provide moisture, sweetness, and fruity aroma as the pudding steams.

The step that matters

Set the dish in a steamer over the boiling water and cover. Steam must be kept rising and the lid kept on so the dough cooks through and rises evenly; if the water stops boiling or steam escapes, the pudding can turn out heavy and underdone.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, milk. 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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