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Dessert

Steamed Damson Pudding

A steamed pudding made with damsons, sugar, water, flour, butter, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Steamed Damson Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Mix the baking powder with the flour.

  2. Rub the butter or margarine into the flour mixture.

  3. Gradually add the water and roll out the dough on a floured surface.

Assemble the pudding

  1. Grease a basin with butter or margarine and line it with the dough.

  2. Place the damsons, sugar, and water into the lined basin.

  3. Cover with the remaining dough and lay buttered paper over the top.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for 3 hours.

  2. Serve with raw or clotted cream.

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 + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Forms the dough structure that holds the pudding together while it steams.
Butter or margarine
Adds fat that makes the dough short and tender as it is rubbed into the flour.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough so the crust rises and becomes lighter.
Damsons
Provide the fruit flavour and juices that moisten the filling as it steams.
Sugar
Sweetens the damson filling and balances the fruit's tartness.

The step that matters

Lining the basin with the dough. The dough must be rolled evenly and sealed around the basin and filling so no gaps let steam escape or juices leak out during the long steam. Uneven dough can also cook unevenly and turn soggy in thin spots.

“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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