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Dessert

Quick Puff Pudding

A steamed pudding made with a soft batter, fruit, and quick cooking time.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Quick Puff Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, and salt.

  2. Add enough milk to create a very soft batter.

Assemble and steam

  1. In well-greased cups, place a spoonful of batter, followed by a spoonful of fruit, and then another spoonful of batter on top.

  2. Steam for twenty minutes.

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 + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the batter as it sets during steaming.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the pudding rise and become light.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and makes a very soft batter that steams into a tender crumb.
Fruit
Adds moisture, sweetness, and flavor within the pudding.

The step that matters

Make the batter very soft. Too little milk gives a stiff batter that steams into a dense, heavy pudding. A very soft batter hydrates the flour fully and lets the baking powder gas expand, producing a lighter texture.

“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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