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Dessert

Ginger Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, sugar, eggs, preserved ginger, milk, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Ginger Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine milk, sugar, and butter in a saucepan, heat until it begins to simmer, then remove from heat.

  2. Quickly stir in the flour for about three minutes.

  3. Gradually add the eggs, mixing well.

Steam and serve

  1. Grease a mold and pour in the batter.

  2. Steam for about one hour.

  3. Serve hot with custard sauce, seasoned with ginger syrup.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 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
Provides the starch and structure that hold the pudding together.
Eggs
Set during steaming to give the pudding structure and richness.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown lightly.
Preserved ginger
Gives the pudding its main flavour and aroma.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour. Flour must be stirred in quickly so it hydrates evenly in the hot milk mixture and does not form lumps, which would leave a grainy texture in the finished pudding.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Gingerthe original

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