Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Boiled Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Gradually stir the sour milk into the flour until smooth.
Add the suet and salt, then beat in the baking soda mixture thoroughly and quickly.
Boil and serve
Pour the batter into a buttered mold.
Boil for one and a half hours.
Turn out and serve hot with sauce.
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.
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the pudding as it sets.
- Sour milk
- Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the sour milk's acid to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
- Powdered suet
- Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender.
The step that matters
Beat in the baking soda mixture thoroughly and quickly. Baking soda reacts with the acid in the sour milk as soon as they meet, releasing gas. Mixing quickly and thoroughly spreads the gas evenly through the batter, so the pudding rises consistently instead of forming uneven pockets or going flat.
“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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