Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Steamed Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the batter
In a bowl, mix the suet, molasses, sugar, eggs, and sweet milk.
In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and stir until combined.
Steam and serve
Butter a dish or bowl and strew raisins on the bottom.
Pour the batter into the prepared dish and steam for 2 hours.
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.
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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,225 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,577 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure as the pudding sets.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
- Cream of tartar
- Provides acidity that activates the baking soda, helping the pudding rise.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the pudding as it steams.
- Suet
- Adds fat that gives the pudding a moist, rich texture.
- Molasses
- Adds sweetness, dark color and moisture to the pudding.
The step that matters
Stirring the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Stir only until combined. Once the baking soda and cream of tartar meet liquid, they start releasing gas, so overmixing knocks out bubbles and develops gluten, making the pudding dense.
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, sugar, egg, milk, flour, cream):
- Raisinthe original
- Vanillafits about as well
- Figfits less well
- Strawberryfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, egg, milk, flour, cream. 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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