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Dessert

Treacle Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, flour, ginger, baking soda, treacle, milk, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,116 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Treacle Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix suet, flour, ginger, and baking soda in a bowl.

  2. Beat the egg, then add milk and treacle.

  3. Combine the two mixtures and mix well.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour mixture into a well-buttered basin and cover with buttered paper.

  2. Steam for two hours.

  3. Serve with sweet 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. Ginger + molassestop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 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

Suet
Adds fat that melts during steaming, keeping the pudding moist and rich.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic treacle to produce gas that lightens the texture.
Treacle
Provides sweetness, dark colour and moisture, and its acidity activates the baking soda.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps it set firm when steamed.

The step that matters

Steam for two hours. Steaming must be gentle and steady so the water does not boil dry or enter the basin. Even heat cooks the batter through and sets the crumb without making it heavy or soggy.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, molasses, milk, egg. 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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