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Dessert

Ginger Souffle Pudding

A steamed pudding made with butter, flour, eggs, milk, preserved ginger, ginger syrup, and decorated with lemon or dried fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ginger Souffle Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat and mix in the flour until smooth.

  2. Add the beaten egg yolks and milk, stirring to create a smooth batter.

  3. Stir in the preserved ginger and ginger syrup.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until firm peaks form, then gently fold them into the batter.

Prepare the mold

  1. Grease a mold generously with butter and decorate the inside with cut shapes of lemon, citron, or dried fruit.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the batter into the mold, cover with buttered paper, and steam gently until firm in the center.

  2. Turn out the pudding and serve with ginger 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 + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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
Yolks thicken the batter and whites, whipped to peaks, give the pudding its light, risen structure.
Flour
Cooked with melted butter, it forms a roux that thickens the batter and gives it body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for a tender texture and a smooth, flavorful batter.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and yolks into a smooth batter and adds moisture to the pudding.
Preserved ginger
Provides the main flavor and a pleasant chew, with its syrup adding sweetness and aroma.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites whipped to firm peaks trap air that makes the pudding light. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring or deflating the batter leaves a dense, heavy result.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, egg, milk, syrup, lemon. 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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