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Dessert

German Gooseberry Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, breadcrumbs, suet, ginger, gooseberries, and golden syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

German Gooseberry Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Mix the flour, bread crumbs, chopped suet, ground ginger, gooseberries, and golden syrup in a large bowl.

  2. Add enough milk to form a very stiff dough.

Cook

  1. Grease a pudding bag thoroughly and fill it with the dough.

  2. Cook the bag in boiling water for 1 hour.

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Ginger + syruptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together950 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + syruptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,540 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 structure of the dough that holds the pudding together.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add body to the stiff dough.
Chopped suet
Adds fat that gives a rich, tender texture as it melts during cooking.
Gooseberries
Add tartness and moisture that flavour the pudding.
Golden syrup
Adds sweetness and moisture to the dough.

The step that matters

Add enough milk to form a very stiff dough. Too much milk makes the dough slack, so it may burst or cook up heavy and soggy in the bag. A stiff dough holds its shape and cooks into a firm, cohesive pudding.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, bread, syrup, milk. 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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