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Dessert

Marmalade Pudding

A steamed pudding made with eggs, sugar, butter, flour, baking powder, salt, and orange marmalade.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Marmalade Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the sugar and butter until smooth.

  2. Sift the flour with the baking powder and salt, then gradually add to the egg mixture.

  3. Stir in the orange marmalade until well combined.

Steam and set

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for 1½ hours until set.

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. 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. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and help the pudding set into a firm, tender structure.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the pudding as it cooks.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the batter, giving the pudding a lighter texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the pudding moist.
Orange marmalade
Adds sweetness, citrus acidity and aroma throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam for 1½ hours until set. Steaming gently and for the full time lets the egg and flour structure set evenly. Lifting the lid or cooking too hot can cause uneven texture or a sunken, dense centre.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, flour. 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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