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Dessert

English Pudding

A steamed pudding made with molasses, butter, sweet milk, flour, raisins, baking soda, and spices.

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

English Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. Mix molasses, butter, and sweet milk in a large bowl until well combined.

  2. Add baking soda, mixed spices, chopped raisins, and flour. Stir until smooth.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam the pudding for 2 to 3 hours until cooked through.

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. 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. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  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

Molasses
Adds dark sweetness and moisture, and gives the pudding its rich colour and flavour.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the batter into a firm, sliceable pudding as it cooks.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to release gas, helping the pudding rise and turn light.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich mouthfeel.
Chopped raisins
Add pockets of concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam until cooked through. Steaming cooks the batter gently with moist heat, so the centre sets without drying the outside. Stopping too early leaves a dense, gummy middle, while the full time ensures the flour's starch has fully set.

“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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