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Dessert

Brown Pudding

A steamed pudding made with butter, sultanas, sugar, flour, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Brown Pudding

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Brown Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and finely chop the sultanas, then pound them well in a mortar.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Beat the eggs well and add them to the butter mixture.

  3. Sift the flour and add it alternately with the eggs, mixing well.

  4. Fold in the sultanas until evenly distributed.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased mold and steam for 4 hours.

  2. Serve with hard 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air, giving the pudding a light, tender crumb and rich flavour.
Sugar
Creams with butter to aerate the batter and adds sweetness and browning.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set during steaming.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the pudding as it steams.
Sultanas
Add sweetness, chewy texture and fruity flavour throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Adding the flour alternately with the eggs. Adding flour in small portions with the eggs keeps the batter emulsified and prevents curdling. Overmixing once flour is in develops gluten, which can make the pudding tough and dense.

“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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