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Dessert

Raisin Puff Pudding

A steamed pudding made with eggs, butter, sugar, milk, flour, raisins, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Raisin Puff Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and butter together until creamy.

  2. Add the sugar and mix well.

  3. Stir in the sweet milk, flour, raisins, and baking powder until combined.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for 30 minutes.

  3. Serve warm with cream or 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during steaming.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the pudding as it cooks.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lightens the batter as it steams.
Seeded raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam Gently With Water at a Steady Simmer. Steam heat cooks the pudding evenly and gently. If the water boils too hard or runs dry, the outside can overcook or the pudding can turn dense and uneven. Keep the pot topped up and the water steadily simmering.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, sugar, milk, 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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