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Dessert

Steamed Pudding

A steamed pudding made with molasses, suet, flour, sour milk, baking soda, cream of tartar, ginger, currants, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine molasses, chopped suet, flour, sour milk, baking soda, cream of tartar, and ground ginger.

  2. Mix in currants and raisins until well combined.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Cover the mold with a lid or foil.

  3. Steam for 2 hours, ensuring the water level remains consistent.

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 + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Ginger + raisintop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the pudding as it cooks.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that works with the baking soda to help the pudding rise.
Sour milk
Provides acidity for the leavening reaction and moisture for a tender crumb.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color and a deep sweetness to the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam for 2 hours, ensuring the water level remains consistent.. Steaming gently and steadily cooks the batter through without drying it out. If the water boils low, the pudding cooks unevenly and can turn heavy or dense.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, flour, milk, cream, ginger, raisin. 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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