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Dessert

Steamed Pudding

A steamed pudding made with molasses, sour milk, raisins, sugar, nuts, suet, flour, and citron.

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 Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine molasses, sour milk, baking soda, raisins, sugar, chopped nuts, suet, flour, and citron, then mix until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

Steam

  1. Cover the mold with a lid or foil.

  2. Steam for 3 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. Raisin + nutstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep sweetness to the pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds tenderness and moisture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during long steaming.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steaming the covered mold. The mold must be sealed and kept at a steady simmer for the full time. Steam provides gentle, even heat that cooks the batter through without drying it, so the pudding sets evenly.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, milk, raisin, sugar, flour):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, raisin, sugar, flour. 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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