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Dessert

Peach Pudding

A steamed pudding made with peaches, butter, sugar, egg, nutmeg, baking soda, sour milk, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Peach Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix melted butter and sugar until combined.

  2. Add the egg, nutmeg, baking soda, and sour milk; stir well.

  3. Gradually mix in the flour until smooth.

  4. Fold in the sliced peaches.

Steam and set

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased steaming dish.

  2. Steam for one hour until set.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + peachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together781 recipes

    Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).

  4. Nutmeg + peachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Egg
Helps bind the batter and sets it into a tender body when heated.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to release gas, lightening the pudding's texture.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tang.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing moistness and a soft crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps keep it moist and tender.

The step that matters

Steam until set. Steaming gently cooks the egg and flour into a firm, tender structure. Undercooking leaves the centre wet and loose, while the batter stays moist as it heats.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Peachthe original

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