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Dessert

Ginger Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, bread crumbs, flour, baking powder, sugar, egg, preserved ginger, syrup, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Ginger Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine the chopped suet, bread crumbs, flour, baking powder, and sugar in a bowl.

  2. Add the egg, chopped preserved ginger, and syrup, then mix until combined.

  3. If the mixture is too dry, add a little milk until it reaches a wet consistency.

Steam and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a buttered mold and cover it with greased paper.

  2. Steam the pudding for three 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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it steams.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the pudding a light, soft body.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking so the pudding rises and turns lighter.
Egg
Binds the ingredients and adds structure as the pudding sets.
Preserved ginger
Adds its sharp, spicy aroma and flavor throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Adjusting the milk. Add milk only when the mixture is genuinely too dry. Too much liquid makes the batter loose, so the pudding can turn heavy and fail to hold its shape while steaming.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, flour, sugar, egg, syrup, milk):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Jalapenofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, sugar, egg, syrup, 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.

More ginger pudding recipes

Steamed 11Preserved 6Plain 3 See all 105 →

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