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Dessert

Steamed Cocoa-Nut Pudding

A steamed pudding made with cocoa-nut, milk, eggs, butter, sugar, bread crumbs, sponge cake crumbs, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and cocoa work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 357 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Steamed Cocoa-Nut Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the milk

  1. Combine grated cocoa-nut and milk in a saucepan; heat slowly until it boils, then boil for 5 minutes.

Make the batter

  1. Beat butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy.

  2. Add bread crumbs and sponge cake crumbs to the butter mixture.

  3. Gradually pour in the boiling milk and cocoa-nut mixture while stirring continuously.

  4. Mix well, then beat in the egg yolks and two stiffly beaten egg whites.

  5. Add vanilla extract and mix until combined.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered and sugared mold decorated with cherries.

  2. Steam the pudding slowly 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. Vanilla + cocoatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together357 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Egg yolks and stiffly beaten whites bind the pudding and give it a light, set structure.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender texture to the pudding.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the liquid and give the pudding body while keeping it moist.
Grated cocoa-nut
Simmered in milk to flavour the liquid, adding aroma and a rich, sweet taste.

The step that matters

Steaming the pudding slowly. Gentle, steady steam cooks the egg-based batter evenly and keeps it tender. Too fierce a boil can make the surface and texture coarse or uneven.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Cocoathe original
  3. Pecansfits about as well
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, bread, milk. 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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