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Dessert

Raspberry Pudding

A steamed pudding made with butter, sugar, flour, egg, raspberry jam or fresh raspberries, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Raspberry Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl.

  2. Add the sugar and cream again until light and fluffy.

  3. Beat the egg and add it to the mixture.

  4. Sift in the flour and baking powder, then fold in the jam or raspberries.

Steam and serve

  1. Turn the mixture into well-buttered pudding cups or a basin.

  2. Steam for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

  3. Serve with fruit sauce.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + raspberrytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,308 recipes

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

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the pudding a light, tender crumb and rich flavour.
Sugar
Creamed with butter to build the airy structure and adds sweetness.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets during steaming.
Flour
Forms the structure of the pudding as the batter sets during steaming.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to help the pudding rise and stay light.
Raspberry jam or raspberries
Adds fruity sweetness, acidity and moisture to the pudding.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter and sugar. Beating butter and sugar until light and fluffy traps air bubbles that expand during steaming and help the pudding rise. Under-creamed butter yields a dense, heavy pudding.

Swap the raspberry

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Raspberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, 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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