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Dessert

Steamed Fruit Pudding

A steamed pudding made with bread crumbs, flour, molasses, sweet milk, eggs, suet, and dried fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Steamed Fruit Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine bread crumbs, flour, molasses, sweet milk, salt, cloves, and cinnamon in a mixing bowl.

  2. Stir baking powder into the milk, then add the beaten eggs, chopped suet, and figs or floured raisins and currants.

  3. Mix well and pour into a well-greased mold or cloth.

Steam

  1. 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.

  1. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + figtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together614 recipes

    Shared aroma: cinnamyl acetate (sweet aromatic, cinnamon).

  3. Clove + figtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + figtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Adds bulk and soft body to the batter, helping it hold together while steaming.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that sets the pudding's crumb once steamed.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and a deep, rich flavor to the pudding.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the pudding rise and turn lighter.
Large eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during steaming.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it steams.

The step that matters

Pour into a well-greased mold or cloth. A thick, fruit-filled batter can stick and tear when turned out if the mold is not well greased. Greasing gives a clean release and keeps the pudding's shape intact after steaming.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Allspicefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, molasses, milk, cinnamon, egg, fig. 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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