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Buffalo Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, baking powder, cornstarch, butter, berries, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Buffalo Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the baking powder with the flour thoroughly.

  2. Add the salt and cornstarch, then mix to a drop cake consistency.

  3. Melt the butter and stir it into the mixture.

Assemble and steam

  1. In a buttered tin pail or steamer, drop part of the mixture.

  2. Layer with berries or dried fruit, then cover with more batter.

  3. Steam the pudding for 1.5 hours, ensuring the water boils continuously.

Serve

  1. Serve with a liquid 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 + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + appletop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,140 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Forms the bulk and structure of the pudding as it steams.
Baking powder
Releases gas during steaming, helping the pudding rise and lighten.
Cornstarch
Softens the crumb and gives a more tender texture than flour alone.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing tenderness and flavor to the batter.
Berries or dried fruit
Adds moisture, sweetness and flavor in layers through the pudding.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling continuously during steaming. Steam is what cooks the pudding. If the water stops boiling, the temperature drops and the pudding cooks unevenly, turning heavy and doughy.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, butter. 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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