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Dessert

Gingeebbead Pudding

A steamed pudding made from flour, treacle, dripping, sugar, baking soda, ginger, and milk.

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 ↓

Gingeebbead Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the flour, treacle, dripping, sugar, baking soda, and ginger in a bowl.

  2. Add enough milk to create a batter.

Steam and serve

  1. Place the batter in a basin that is too large to allow for rising.

  2. Tie a scalded cloth loosely over the basin.

  3. Steam or boil for 2 hours, ensuring the water does not cover the basin.

  4. Serve with 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. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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 pudding as the batter sets.
Treacle
Adds sweetness, dark colour and a moist, sticky texture.
Dripping
Adds fat, giving the pudding a rich, tender crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the treacle's acidity to lift and lighten the batter.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and forms the batter with the other ingredients.

The step that matters

Leave room in the basin and keep the water below the rim. The batter rises as it steams, so a basin that is too full can overflow or make the pudding heavy. Water covering the cloth can soak the pudding and make it soggy.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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