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Dessert

Ginger Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, breadcrumbs, suet, ginger, and treacle, served with sweet white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Ginger Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Finely chop the suet and place it in a bowl with the flour, breadcrumbs, baking soda, salt, and ginger.

  2. Beat the egg and mix it with the treacle and milk.

  3. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, add the milk mixture, and beat everything together.

Steam and serve

  1. Grease a pudding basin, pour in the mixture, cover with greased paper, and steam for 2 hours or longer.

  2. Serve with sweet white 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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Ginger + syruptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together950 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + syruptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,540 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Flour
Forms the bulk of the batter and gives the pudding its structure as it sets.
Breadcrumbs
Add body and a soft, absorbent texture that holds moisture during steaming.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set into a firm, cohesive pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic treacle to help the pudding rise and lighten.
Treacle or golden syrup
Provides sweetness, dark color, and moisture, with a rich flavor.

The step that matters

Steaming the pudding. The pudding must steam for the full time, or longer, so the batter cooks through and sets. Steam gently heats the batter evenly without drying it, keeping it moist and tender. Keep the basin covered and check that the water keeps simmering.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Gingerthe original

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