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Dessert

Steamed Chocolate Pudding

A steamed chocolate pudding made with butter, sugar, egg, milk, flour, baking powder, salt, and chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Steamed Chocolate Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and gradually add the sugar while beating constantly.

  2. Add the beaten egg and mix well.

  3. Sift the dry ingredients together and add them alternately with the milk to the butter mixture.

  4. Melt the chocolate and stir it into the mixture, beating thoroughly.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a buttered mold, cover it, and steam for two hours.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

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

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and give the pudding a tender, rich crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the pudding rises and turns light.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness to the crumb.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the pudding as it sets during steaming.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter so it blends smoothly with the flour.
Chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and some richness throughout the batter.

The step that matters

Adding the dry ingredients alternately with the milk. Alternating flour and milk in portions keeps the batter smooth and well emulsified. Adding it all at once can leave lumps or a dense, tough texture once steamed.

“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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