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Dessert

Fruit Pudding

A steamed fruit pudding with a crust, served warm with cream and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 303 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Fruit Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Place the fruit in a tin basin, sprinkle sugar over it, and add a little water.

  2. If using peaches, peel them and add them whole.

Make the crust

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, salt, and butter or lard.

  2. Add enough water or milk to form a dough, then roll it out.

  3. Cover the fruit with the rolled-out crust.

Steam and serve

  1. Cover the basin with another basin to allow the crust to rise.

  2. Set the basin on the stove to steam the crust as the fruit cooks.

  3. Serve warm with cream and sugar.

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. Peach + appletop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together303 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Peach + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together781 recipes

    Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the dough structure that holds the crust together while it steams.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it heats, helping the crust rise and become light.
Butter or lard
Adds fat that tenderises the crust and gives it a short, crumbly texture.
Fruit
Provides the main flavour and juices that cook down under the crust.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and helps draw out and flavour its juices.

The step that matters

Covering the basin to steam the crust. The crust cooks by steam trapped under the second basin. If the cover lets steam escape or the heat is too low, the crust rises poorly and stays doughy.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (peach, sugar, flour, butter, milk, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peach, sugar, flour, butter, milk, cream. 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.

More fruit pudding recipes

Steamed 91Boiled 17Cold 14English 14Baked 12Tapioca 11 See all 210 →

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