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Dessert

Soda Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, suet, golden syrup, raisins, currants, candied peel, baking soda, milk, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Soda Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Chop the suet very finely and mix it with the flour.

  2. Add the golden syrup, currants, raisins, and chopped candied peel.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the boiling milk and stir it into the mixture along with the beaten egg.

  4. Stir well and pour into a greased pudding basin.

Steam

  1. Cover with greased paper and steam for 2 to 3 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. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Raisin + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk 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

Flour
Forms the main structure of the pudding as it sets.
Suet
Adds richness and a moist, tender crumb as it melts during steaming.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps it set into a firm, cohesive pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic syrup and rises to lighten the pudding.
Golden syrup
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a caramel flavour.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in the boiling milk. Baking soda needs to be fully dissolved so it disperses evenly through the batter. Uneven distribution can leave pockets of bitter flavour or uneven rising.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, syrup, egg, raisin, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, syrup, egg, raisin, 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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