Name: Grandma's Steamed Pudding
Ingredients: 1 egg; 2 tablespoons sour cream; ⅓ cup sugar; ½ teaspoon baking soda; about a handful of raisins; flour (enough to make a stiff batter); vanilla extract; whipped cream (for serving)

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 ↓

Grandma's Steamed Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

In a bowl, combine the egg, sour cream, sugar, baking soda, and vanilla extract.
Add enough flour to create a stiff batter.
Fold in the raisins.

Steam and serve

Pour the batter into cups and steam until cooked through.
Serve with whipped cream.

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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Raisin + vanillatop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together782 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,241 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Egg: Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets during steaming.
Sour cream: Adds moisture and tenderness, along with a slight tang.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic sour cream to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Flour: Forms the stiff batter's structure as its starch sets when heated.

The step that matters

Steam until cooked through. Steaming gently sets the egg and flour without drying the pudding. Lifting the lid too often or cooking too hot can make the texture heavy or uneven, so test that the centre is set before removing the cups.

“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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Grandma's Steamed Pudding