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Dessert

Boiled or Steamed Pudding

A boiled pudding made with milk, molasses, suet, flour, egg, raisins, currants, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Boiled or Steamed Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine milk, molasses, suet, flour, egg, raisins, currants, cream of tartar, and baking soda dissolved in a little hot water.

  2. Mix until well combined, then add bread crumbs and spices.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Cover and boil for three 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.

  1. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps set the pudding as it cooks.
Molasses
Adds dark sweetness, moisture and a rich flavor.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender.
Cream of tartar
Acidic leavening that reacts with baking soda to lighten the pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the pudding rise.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda. Baking soda must be fully dissolved in hot water before mixing so it reacts evenly with the cream of tartar. Clumps can leave pockets of bitterness or uneven rising.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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