Skip to main content
Dessert

Steamed Pudding

A steamed pudding made from bread or crackers, tart apples, dried fruit, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Apple and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,920 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Steamed Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the bread or crackers, tart apples, and dried sweet fruit in a large bowl.

  2. Add enough water to prevent the pudding from drying while cooking, and mix thoroughly.

Steam

  1. Steam the mixture for 4 to 5 hours, depending on the quantity.

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. Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

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

  2. Bread + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Bread + raisintop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,111 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread or crackers
Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up moisture as it steams.
Tart apples
Add moisture and a sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the dried fruit.
Dried sweet fruit
Adds concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Adding enough water. Bread and dried fruit absorb liquid as they steam. Without enough water the pudding can dry out and turn dense and crumbly, so the mixture needs to stay moist for the whole steaming time.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, apple):

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, apple. 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.

You might also like

Apple Bread PuddingApple Bread Pudding21 recipesApple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipes