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Dessert

Steam Pudding

A sweet steamed pudding made with milk, sugar, molasses, flour, spices, and optional raisins or berries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Steam Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix sweet milk, sugar, molasses, flour, cinnamon, cloves, and baking soda in a bowl.

  2. Add raisins or berries if desired.

Steam

  1. Grease a pail or mold.

  2. Pour the mixture into the greased pail or mold.

  3. Cover tightly.

  4. Steam for two 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Clove + raisintop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses to release gas, helping the pudding rise and turn light.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness and a dark color to the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the crumb moist and tender.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the flour and dissolves the dry ingredients into a pourable batter.

The step that matters

Cover tightly. Steaming relies on trapped, moist heat to cook the batter evenly. A loose cover lets steam escape, so the pudding can dry out and cook unevenly.

Swap the raisin

The recipe marks raisin as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, molasses, flour, cinnamon, clove):

  1. Raisinthe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Applefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, molasses, flour, cinnamon, clove. 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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