Name: Steamed Pudding
Ingredients: 1 cup molasses; 1 cup suet, chopped; 3 cups flour; 1 cup sour milk; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 2 teaspoons cream of tartar; 1 teaspoon ground ginger; 1 cup currants; 1 cup raisins

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

Make the batter

In a large bowl, mix together the molasses, suet, flour, sour milk, baking soda, cream of tartar, and ground ginger until well combined.
Fold in the currants and raisins.

Steam

Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.
Cover the mold with a cloth 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).
Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Ginger + raisintop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,242 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,577 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,116 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses: Adds dark sweetness, color, and a rich, moist texture to the pudding.
Suet: Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it steams.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the pudding together.
Sour milk: Adds moisture and acidity that react with the leavening agents.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic sour milk and cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the pudding.
Cream of tartar: Adds acidity that works with baking soda to help the pudding rise.

Swap the currant

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Coconutfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, flour, milk, cream, ginger, raisin. 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.