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Dessert

Berry or Fruit Pudding

A steamed dough rolled with fruit, served with lemon sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Berry or Fruit Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, and baking powder.

  2. Rub in the shortening until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

  3. Add enough milk or water to form a soft dough.

Fill and steam

  1. Roll out the dough thinly and spread with your choice of berries or fruit.

  2. Roll the dough up in a cloth and place it in a steamer.

  3. Steam until cooked through and serve with lemon 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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Milk + saucetop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 structure of the dough that holds the fruit inside the roll.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the steamer so the pudding rises and turns light.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidic components to add lift and help the pudding brown slightly.
Shortening
Coats flour particles to tenderise the dough and add a rich texture.
Berries or fruit
Provides moisture, sweetness and flavour in the filling of the roll.

The step that matters

Rub in the shortening until resembling coarse crumbs. Fat coating flour limits gluten development, so overworking or melting the shortening makes the dough tough rather than tender. Keeping the fat in small distinct pieces gives a flaky, tender crumb.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, sauce. 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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