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Dessert

Raisin Puff

A steamed pastry made with milk, flour, raisins, eggs, butter, sugar, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Raisin Puff

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix butter and raisins.

  2. Beat egg with sugar and milk.

  3. Sift baking powder into flour.

  4. Mix all together.

Steam

  1. Steam for one hour in nine buttered cups, or one hour in six cups.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

744Calories
28 gProtein
15 gFat
124 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Ramblers' club, Minneapolis. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour 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

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the puddings together as they set.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during steaming, giving the puddings body.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, helping the batter steam into a tender texture.
Chopped raisins
Add sweetness, chew and pockets of moisture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam for the full hour. Steam gently raises and sets the batter evenly. If the water stops boiling or the steamer is opened too often, the pudding cools, sinks and turns dense and heavy.

“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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