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Dessert

Steamed Cranberry Pudding

A steamed pudding made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, milk, and cranberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Steamed Cranberry Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and gradually add the sugar.

  2. Beat in the eggs until well combined.

  3. Mix and sift the flour and baking powder, then add alternately with the milk to the butter mixture.

  4. Stir in the cranberries.

Steam and serve

  1. Turn the mixture into a buttered mold, cover it, and steam for 3 hours.

  2. Serve with thin cream, sweetened and flavored with nutmeg.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and add richness and tender texture.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set during steaming.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the pudding as its starches set with heat.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the pudding rise and become light.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter so it blends with the flour.
Cranberries
Add tartness that balances the sweetness and bright color to the pudding.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and milk alternately. Adding flour and liquid in portions keeps the batter smooth and prevents lumps, so the structure sets evenly and the pudding stays tender rather than tough.

“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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