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Dessert

Steamed Pudding

A steamed pudding made with eggs, molasses, flour, suet, butter, sour milk, baking soda, spices, raisins, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Steamed Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the eggs, molasses, flour, suet, butter, sour milk, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice, raisins, and salt until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam the pudding for 1 hour.

  2. Serve warm with cream.

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. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Walnut + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Walnut + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and moisture as they set during steaming.
Flour
Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the pudding its body.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and the dark color and rich flavor of the pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding tender and moist as it steams.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release gas that lightens the batter.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tang.

The step that matters

Steaming the pudding. Steam needs to stay steady and the water must not boil dry, because uneven or lost heat can leave the pudding dense, soggy, or undercooked in the center.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Flaxseedfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, molasses, flour, butter, milk, cinnamon, allspice. 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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