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Dessert

Cup Pudding

A steamed pudding made with egg, sugar, butter, water, flour, baking powder, and optional fruit or raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 bowl, beat the egg and mix in the sugar and butter.

  2. Add water gradually until the mixture is thin.

  3. Stir in the flour and baking powder until well combined.

  4. Fold in fresh fruit or raisins.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cup and steam for 20 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 + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets during steaming.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the pudding as the batter sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the pudding rise and turn light.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and richer flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding a softer texture.

The step that matters

Adding the water gradually. Pouring in the water all at once can make the batter lumpy or uneven, while adding it slowly lets the flour and egg blend smoothly into a batter of the right thinness for an even, light texture when steamed.

“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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