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Dessert

Steamed Bread Pudding

A steamed pudding made with bread crumbs, raisins, molasses, baking soda, water, butter, egg, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Steamed Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. Combine bread crumbs, raisins, molasses, and baking soda in a bowl.

  2. Pour hot water over the melted butter and add to the mixture.

  3. Beat in the egg and flour until well combined.

  4. Add spices to taste.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for 2 hours.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, 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

Bread crumbs
Form the bulk of the pudding and absorb the liquid to give it body.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to lighten the pudding as it steams.
Egg
Binds the mixture so it holds together when steamed and sliced.
Flour
Adds structure that helps the pudding set firm after steaming.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture to the crumb.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.. Grease keeps the pudding from sticking, and the mold must be sealed so steam cooks the batter evenly without water getting in.

“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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