Skip to main content
Dessert

Sultana Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, breadcrumbs, sugar, spices, treacle, sultanas, butter, egg, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sultana Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the pudding

  1. In a bowl, combine the self-raising flour, breadcrumbs, sugar, ginger, cinnamon, and mixed spice.

  2. Rub in the butter until well combined.

  3. Stir in the treacle.

  4. Beat the egg and mix it into the dry ingredients.

  5. Add enough milk to moisten the mixture.

Steam

  1. Transfer the pudding mixture to a covered tin and steam for 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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Self-raising flour
Forms the main structure, and its raising agent lifts the pudding as it cooks.
Breadcrumbs
Add body and absorb moisture, giving a softer, more tender crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding a rich, golden flavour.
Treacle
Adds moisture, dark sweetness, and a deep molasses flavour.
Sultana raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the pudding rich and tender.

The step that matters

Steam with the tin covered. Covering the tin traps steam around the pudding so it cooks gently and stays moist. Without a tight cover, steam escapes, the top can dry out, and the pudding may cook unevenly over the long steaming time.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, raisin, butter, cinnamon, milk):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, raisin, butter, cinnamon, 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.

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipes