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Dessert

Iris Pudding

A steamed pudding made from butter, sugar, egg, flour, baking powder, milk, vanilla, and colored with chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Iris Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the egg, vanilla, flour, baking powder, and enough milk to make a smooth batter.

Color and layer

  1. Divide the mixture into three bowls.

  2. Color one bowl pink.

  3. Add chocolate to another bowl.

  4. In a buttered mold, alternate spoonfuls of each colored mixture.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for 1 hour.

  2. Turn the pudding out of the mold.

  3. Serve with custard or fluff 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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Creamed with butter to trap air, and adds sweetness.
Egg
Binds the batter and sets during steaming to give structure.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the pudding as it steams and sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the pudding rise and become light.
Powdered chocolate
Gives one portion of the batter a chocolate flavor and darker color.

The step that matters

Make a smooth batter with enough milk. The batter needs the right consistency: too thick and the pudding can be dense, too thin and the layers blend together and the pudding loses its shape. Smoothly mixed batter also distributes the baking powder evenly, so the pudding rises uniformly.

“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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