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Dessert

Steamed Fruit Pudding

A steamed pudding made with molasses, sweet milk, butter, flour, raisins, currants, spices, and served with brandy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Steamed Fruit Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix together molasses, sweet milk, and butter until well combined.

  2. Add flour, raisins, currants, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg, then mix thoroughly.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam the pudding for 3 hours.

  3. Serve with hot brandy sauce or hard sauce flavored with brandy.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and a deep, sweet flavor to the pudding.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity in molasses to help the pudding rise and lighten.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam the pudding for 3 hours. Steaming gently cooks the batter through with steady moist heat, keeping it tender. The mold must be sealed and the water kept at a steady simmer, otherwise the pudding can turn dry or heavy.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, milk, butter, flour, raisin, cinnamon, clove):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, butter, flour, raisin, cinnamon, clove. 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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