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Dessert

Cup Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, rice, suet, milk, raisins, baking soda, ginger, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Cup Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, ground rice, suet, milk, raisins, baking soda, ground ginger (if using), and vinegar until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a pudding mold or heatproof bowl.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil for 4 hours in a pot of water, ensuring the water level stays consistent.

  2. Serve with sweet sauce or enjoy plain.

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. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Rice + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,196 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Raisin + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Rice + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together565 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Ground rice
Adds a tender, slightly grainy texture to the pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during long steaming.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps bind the dry ingredients into a batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the vinegar to produce gas that helps the pudding rise and lighten.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy pockets of fruit throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Keep the water level steady while boiling. Long boiling needs a steady water level so the pudding cooks evenly. If the water drops and the pot boils dry, the pudding can scorch or cook unevenly, and the mold may be damaged.

Swap the ginger

The recipe marks ginger as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, rice, milk, raisin, vinegar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, rice, milk, raisin, vinegar. 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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