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Dessert

Alma Pudding

Alma pudding is a boiled sweet pudding made with butter, flour, sugar, sultanas, eggs, and optional vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Alma Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter until creamy.

  2. Gradually add the sugar and mix well.

  3. Dredge in the flour and add the sultanas.

  4. If desired, add a few drops of vanilla flavoring.

  5. Moisten the mixture with the well-beaten eggs.

Prepare the mold

  1. Butter a mold that will hold the pudding mixture.

Boil and serve

  1. Cover the mold with a cloth and place it in boiling water.

  2. Boil for 3 hours.

  3. Serve with sifted sugar sprinkled on top.

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. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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
Adds richness and moisture, giving the batter a creamy base.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps tenderize the batter.
Flour
Provides structure so the pudding holds its shape when cooked.
Sultanas
Add chewy texture and sweetness as they plump during cooking.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set as it cooks.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling for the full 3 hours. Steam from boiling water cooks the pudding gently and evenly through the covered mold. If the water stops boiling for long, the pudding cooks unevenly and can turn heavy or undercooked in the centre.

“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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