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Dessert

Steamed Chocolate Pudding

A steamed pudding made with sugar, butter, egg, milk, flour, baking powder, and melted chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Steamed Chocolate Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix sugar, melted butter, and egg until well combined.

  2. Add sweet milk and stir in flour and baking powder.

  3. Incorporate melted chocolate and beat thoroughly.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for 1½ hours until set.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Egg
Binds the batter and helps it set firm as it steams.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the pudding together once set.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the pudding rises and stays light.
Melted butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and richer mouthfeel.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds softness to the crumb.
Melted chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and some richness to the batter.

The step that matters

Steaming the pudding. Steam must be kept steadily active for the full time, since the batter sets slowly with gentle heat. Letting the water boil dry or dropping the temperature can leave the centre wet or dense.

“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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