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Dessert

Sultana Pudding

A steamed pudding made with eggs, sugar, flour, butter, sultana raisins, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Sultana Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.

  2. Add the flour, baking powder, and sultana raisins, and mix well.

  3. Incorporate the beaten eggs into the mixture.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered mold.

  2. Steam for 1½ 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 + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add richness and lift as they set during steaming.
Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and adds fat for a tender, rich texture.
Castor sugar
Creams with the butter to aerate the batter and adds gentle sweetness.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to help the pudding rise and become light.
Sultana raisins
Add sweetness, chewy texture and fruity flavour throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Incorporate the beaten eggs into the mixture. Adding eggs too quickly or unevenly can split the batter or deflate the air beaten in with the butter and sugar. Folding gently keeps the batter smooth and light so it rises evenly.

“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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