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Dessert

Steamed Pudding

A steamed pudding made with currants, raisins, suet, sugar, cracker crumbs, eggs, spices, flour, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Steamed Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine currants, raisins, chopped suet, sugar, rolled cracker crumbs, beaten eggs, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, flour, and salt.

  2. Dissolve baking soda in warm water and let it cool, then add to the mixture.

  3. Add enough milk to create a soft batter.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for 3 to 4 hours.

  3. Serve with your choice of 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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during steaming.
Suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to lighten its crumb and help it rise.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding body in place of flour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning and a soft crumb.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda. Baking soda must be fully dissolved and cooled before mixing so it reacts evenly through the batter instead of leaving bitter pockets or dense spots.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, sugar, egg, allspice, clove, cinnamon, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar, egg, allspice, clove, cinnamon, flour. 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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