Why it works: Milk and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,759 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓
Steamed Batter Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Dredge the currants or raisins with a portion of the flour.
Rub the remaining flour with the finely powdered suet.
Make the batter
Mix the molasses and sour milk together, then stir in the flour to form a batter.
Add the dissolved baking soda and beat well.
Stir in the dredged fruit and pour the batter into a well‑oiled basin, filling it not quite full.
Cover with an inverted pie pan or a closely fitting lid.
Steam and serve
Set the basin in a steamer and steam for 2½ hours without uncovering.
If you don't have a steamer, pour the batter into a well‑oiled tin bucket, cover with a clean, floured cloth, and press the lid tightly.
Place the bucket inside a pot of boiling water, ensuring the water doesn't reach the top of the bucket, and cook for 2½ hours.
Serve immediately with lemon sauce, fruit, or fruit juice, or enjoy it plain.
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.
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Milk + beeftop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,759 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,429 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,475 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
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Molasses + curranttop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,817 recipes
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Sour milk or buttermilk
- Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to make the batter rise.
- Graham flour
- Provides the bulk and structure of the pudding, with a coarse, hearty texture.
- Beef suet
- Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it steams.
- Molasses
- Adds sweetness, dark colour and a rich flavour to the batter.
- Currants or raisins
- Add pockets of sweetness and chewy fruit throughout the pudding.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lightens the batter.
The step that matters
Keep the basin covered while steaming. Lifting the lid lets steam escape, so the temperature drops and the pudding can turn heavy or sunken. The seal holds steam in, which cooks and raises the batter evenly.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, beef, molasses):
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, beef, molasses. 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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