Name: Steamed Pudding
Ingredients: 1 cup suet, chopped; ½ cup molasses; ½ cup sugar; 2 eggs; 1 cup sweet milk; 2 cups all-purpose flour; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 2 teaspoons cream of tartar; Raisins, for the bottom of the dish

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Steamed Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

In a bowl, combine the chopped suet, molasses, sugar, eggs, and sweet milk.
In another bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until well combined.

Steam and serve

Butter a dish or bowl and strew raisins on the bottom.
Pour the batter into the prepared dish and steam for 2 hours.

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.

Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,225 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,577 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Suet: Adds fat and richness, keeping the pudding moist and tender as it steams.
Eggs: Bind the batter and add structure as they set during steaming.
All-purpose flour: Forms the main structure of the pudding once it is cooked.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic molasses and cream of tartar to lift the batter.
Cream of tartar: Acid that works with baking soda to produce gas and help the pudding rise.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture with a slight acidity.

Swap the raisin

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

Raisinthe original
Vanillafits about as well
Figfits less well
Strawberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, egg, milk, flour, cream. 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.