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Dessert

Essex Pudding

A steamed pudding made with sugar, butter, flour, baking powder, eggs, milk, and jam or golden syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Essex Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.

  2. Gradually add the flour and beaten eggs.

  3. Mix in enough milk to achieve a thick cream consistency.

Steam and serve

  1. Butter a mold and spread jam around the inside.

  2. Pour the mixture into the mold and steam for 1½ hours.

  3. Alternatively, omit the jam and pour hot golden syrup over the pudding after cooking.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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
Creams with sugar to trap air and gives the pudding richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps create a light, creamed texture with the butter.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the pudding as it steams.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set during steaming.
Baking powder
Releases gas to lift the batter so the pudding rises and stays light.

The step that matters

Mixing in the milk. Too much milk makes the batter thin and the pudding heavy or dense, while too little leaves it stiff. Aim for a thick cream consistency so the batter can rise and set evenly while steaming.

“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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