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Dessert

Steamed Pudding

A sweet steamed pudding made with sugar, butter, milk, raisins, flour, baking soda, spices, powdered sugar, butter, egg whites, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Steamed Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter in a bowl.

  2. Add the sweet milk, raisins, flour, baking soda, and mixed spices. Mix well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  4. Steam for 2 hours.

Make the sauce

  1. Whip together the powdered sugar and butter until creamy.

  2. Fold in the beaten egg whites. Season with vanilla.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Raisin + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together782 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Forms the main structure of the pudding as it sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the milk and sugar to help the pudding rise and lighten.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the pudding crumb.
Egg whites
Whipped into the sauce to give it a light, airy texture.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam for 2 hours. Steaming gently cooks the batter through with moist heat, keeping the pudding tender. Letting the water boil dry or the steam escape can leave the pudding dense or undercooked in the center.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Blueberryfits about as well

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