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Chester Pudding

A boiled pudding made with butter, egg, brown sugar, milk, treacle, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chester Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and brown sugar together.

  2. Add the treacle, milk, and beaten egg, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the baking powder.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased mold.

  2. Boil for 2 hours.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 fat, giving the pudding a tender, moist crumb.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set firm as it cooks.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and deepens the flavour.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter so it cooks evenly.
Treacle
Adds sweetness, dark colour and a rich, molasses-like flavour.
Baking powder
Releases gas when wet and heated, so the pudding rises and lightens.

The step that matters

Stir in the baking powder. Baking powder starts releasing gas as soon as it gets wet and warm. Stirring it in gently and then moving straight to the mold keeps those bubbles in the batter, so the pudding rises rather than turning out dense.

“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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