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Dessert

Steamed Pudding

A steamed pudding made with butter, molasses, milk, currants, raisins, baking soda, and cream of tartar, served with sauce and nutmeg or lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Steamed Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the butter, molasses, milk, currants, and raisins.

  2. Add the baking soda and cream of tartar, and mix well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

Steam and serve

  1. Cover and steam for three hours.

  2. Serve with sauce and sprinkle with nutmeg or lemon.

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 + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  5. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat for a rich, tender crumb and moist texture.
Molasses
Provides sweetness, dark color and a deep, sticky flavor.
Milk
Supplies liquid that hydrates the flour and moistens the pudding.
Currants
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar and molasses to produce gas that lightens the pudding.

The step that matters

Pouring into the mold. The mold must be greased so the pudding releases cleanly after steaming. The batter also rises during cooking, so the mold should not be filled to the very top.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, molasses, milk, raisin, cream, nutmeg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, molasses, milk, raisin, cream, nutmeg. 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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