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Dessert

Ginger Pudding

A steamed pudding made with grated bread, flour, suet, ginger, sugar, syrup, egg, milk, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Syrup and sugar 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 ↓

Ginger Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the suet.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the grated bread, flour, baking powder, sugar, chopped ginger, and syrup in a bowl.

  2. Beat the egg and milk together, then stir into the dry mixture until well combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for 2 hours.

  2. Serve warm.

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. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Grated bread
Forms the bulk of the pudding and absorbs the milk to create a soft, moist crumb.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set as it steams.
Flour
Adds structure so the pudding holds together when turned out.
Baking powder
Releases gas during steaming, lightening the texture.
Suet
Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist texture.
Ginger
Provides the main aroma and warm, spicy flavour.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold. Greasing keeps the pudding from sticking so it releases cleanly. Filling the mold without overfilling leaves room for the batter to rise as it steams.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Jalapenofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, egg, syrup, sugar, 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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