Skip to main content
Dessert

Steam-pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, beef suet, molasses, flour, milk, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Steam-pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the raisins, beef suet, molasses, baking soda, milk, flour, and salt, and mix until well combined.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a greased pudding mold and cover tightly.

Steam and serve

  1. Place the mold over a steamer and steam for 3 hours.

  2. Serve with wine 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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

Milk and flour 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

Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy pieces that stay moist through the long steaming.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it cooks.
Molasses
Adds dark color, sweetness and a deep, rich flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to lighten the batter and help it rise.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that sets the pudding as it steams.

The step that matters

Cover the mold tightly before steaming. A loose cover lets steam escape and water condense into the batter, so the pudding can turn soggy or dry unevenly. A tight seal keeps the steam moist and the heat even during the long cook.

“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.

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesMolasses Sponge CakeMolasses Sponge Cake9 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes