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Dessert

English Pudding

A steamed sweet pudding made with molasses, butter, milk, flour, spices, raisins, currants, and citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

English Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix molasses, butter, and sweet milk in a large bowl.

  2. Add baking soda, flour, mixed spices, raisins, currants, and citron; stir until well combined.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam the pudding for 2 to 3 hours.

  3. Serve with a sweet sauce.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Molasses
Adds dark sweetness, moisture, and a rich, deep flavor to the pudding.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to help the pudding rise and lighten.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam the pudding for 2 to 3 hours. Steaming gently and steadily cooks the batter through without drying it out. Letting the water boil dry or cooking too briefly can leave the centre dense or underdone.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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