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Dessert

Yankee Pudding

A steamed pudding made with butter, egg, flour, breadcrumbs, apricot jam, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Yankee Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Warm the butter until just melted.

  2. Beat the egg and stir it into the melted butter.

  3. Mix in the flour, breadcrumbs, and apricot jam.

  4. Quickly add and stir in the baking soda.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered mold or basin.

  2. Cover the top with a piece of buttered paper.

  3. Steam for 1.5 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + apricottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,458 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + apricottop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,068 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps keep the pudding tender.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together.
Breadcrumbs
Add body and soak up moisture for a softer, lighter crumb.
Apricot jam
Adds sweetness, fruity flavor, and moisture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter's acidity to produce gas that lightens the pudding.

The step that matters

Quickly add and stir in the baking soda.. Baking soda starts releasing gas as soon as it meets moisture and acid in the batter. Delaying it lets that gas escape before the batter sets, so the pudding comes out dense instead of light.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Apricotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, flour. 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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