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Dessert

Steamed Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, raisins, sugar, milk, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Steamed Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix sugar, suet, raisins, milk, baking powder, egg, and spices.

  2. Add enough flour to create a nice batter.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a greased mold.

  2. Steam for three hours.

  3. Serve with hard 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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and gives it a rich texture as it steams.
Egg
Binds the batter together and adds structure to the finished pudding.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the batter so the pudding becomes light rather than dense.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the batter once it sets during steaming.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy pockets of moisture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam for three hours. Steaming must stay gently and steadily hot for the full time so the batter cooks through and sets. Too little heat or time leaves the centre dense and wet.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, raisin, milk, egg, nutmeg, allspice, flour):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, raisin, milk, egg, nutmeg, allspice, 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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