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Dessert

Ginger Puddings

A steamed pudding made with butter, flour, milk, preserved ginger syrup, egg yolks, and egg whites.

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 ↓

Ginger Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Butter a plain mold.

  2. Arrange the preserved ginger slices around the sides.

Make the base

  1. Combine butter and flour in a saucepan, cooking until they bind together.

  2. Gradually add the milk, stirring continuously until smooth.

  3. Stir in the syrup from the preserved ginger and the egg yolks, one at a time.

Finish and cook

  1. Whisk the egg whites until stiff and gently fold them into the mixture.

  2. Steam the pudding for 1 hour.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Butter
Enriches the base and adds richness and flavour to the pudding.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth, binding base for the pudding.
Milk
Forms the liquid of the base, giving a soft, moist texture when set.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind and set the pudding as it cooks.
Egg whites
Whisked to stiff peaks and folded in to lighten the pudding's texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whisked egg whites hold air that gives the pudding its light texture. Stirring them in vigorously knocks out that air, so fold gently until just combined.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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