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Dessert

Ginger Pudding

A steamed pudding made with bread crumbs, butter, sugar, treacle, ginger, mixed spice, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Ginger Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. In a bowl, mix the bread crumbs, butter, sugar, treacle, ground ginger, and mixed spice.

  2. Warm the treacle and add it to the mixture.

  3. Add enough milk to moisten the mixture.

Steam and serve

  1. Transfer to a pudding mold and steam for 2 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and body that hold the pudding together.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving a softer, moister texture.
Treacle
Adds sweetness, dark flavour and moisture to the mixture.
Ground ginger
Provides the main spiced aroma and warmth of the pudding.
Milk
Moistens the crumbs so the mixture binds and steams through.

The step that matters

Add the milk gradually. Too much liquid makes the crumb mixture soggy and dense, while too little leaves dry crumbs that will not bind. Adding milk a little at a time lets you judge when the mixture is moist enough to hold its shape.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

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