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Dessert

Ginger Pudding

A steamed ginger pudding made in two parts with syrup, sugar, milk, butter, eggs, ginger, flour, baking powder, molasses, suet, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Syrup and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Ginger Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the first pudding

  1. In a bowl, mix syrup, sugar, milk, butter, beaten eggs, ginger, and enough flour to thicken.

  2. Sift baking powder with the flour and add to the mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold and steam for three hours.

Make the second pudding

  1. For the second part, combine molasses, flour, cold water, suet, baking soda, ginger, and salt.

  2. Pour this mixture into another greased mold and steam for two hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with a sweet sauce.

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. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Syrup + molassestop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together272 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during steaming.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the pudding rise and become light.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to release gas, helping the second pudding rise.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture with a rich, acidic flavor.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender during steaming.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the batter into a firm pudding.

The step that matters

Steaming the puddings. Steaming must be kept at a steady simmer for the full time. Too little water or heat leaves the puddings dense and underbaked in the center, while the batter needs consistent steam to set evenly.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Allspicefits less well

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