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Dessert

Steamed Treacle or Jam Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, suet, golden syrup or jam, baking soda, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Steamed Treacle or Jam Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the flour, suet, and baking soda in a bowl.

  2. Add the golden syrup (or jam) and milk, then mix until combined.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased basin.

  2. Cover the basin with greased paper and steam for 1.5 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 + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + syruptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,540 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Syrup + milktop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,143 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Suet
Adds richness and a moist, tender texture as it melts during steaming.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity in the syrup to lift the pudding and make it light.
Golden syrup
Adds sweetness and a deep flavour, and moistens the pudding.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and binds the batter into a pourable mixture.

The step that matters

Covering the basin with greased paper. Steaming needs a tight, greased cover so the pudding stays moist and does not dry out or stick. Leaving gaps lets steam escape and can leave the top dry or 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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