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Dessert

Treacle Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, suet, breadcrumbs, treacle, lemon rind, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,404 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Treacle Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pastry

  1. Mix the flour, suet, baking powder, and salt together.

  2. Form into a stiff paste with cold water.

  3. Divide the paste into two equal portions.

  4. Line a pudding basin with one portion.

  5. Roll out the second portion thinly for the lid.

Fill and steam

  1. Add a layer of treacle in the basin, sprinkle with breadcrumbs and lemon rind.

  2. Cut a round from the rolled-out paste to cover the treacle, moisten edges, and seal it to the lining.

  3. Add another layer of treacle, breadcrumbs, and lemon rind, and cover with pastry.

  4. Repeat until the basin is full.

  5. Cover with greased paper and steam for 2.5 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. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 structure of the suet pastry that encloses the filling.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pastry rich and tender as it steams.
Baking powder
Releases gas during steaming so the pastry rises and lightens.
Treacle
Provides sweetness and a dark, rich flavour that soaks into the pudding.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb the melting treacle and add body to the layered filling.

The step that matters

Sealing the pastry lid to the lining. If the moistened edges are not sealed firmly, steam pressure and expanding gas can open gaps, letting treacle leak out and the pudding collapse or dry out.

“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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