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Dessert

Ginger Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, sugar, butter, milk, cream, eggs, lemon rind, and crystallized ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ginger Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine milk, cream, butter, and sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Heat until boiling.

  3. Stir in the flour and mix for 1 minute.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

  5. Add eggs one at a time.

Add flavouring and steam

  1. Drain and chop the crystallized ginger.

  2. Add the ginger and lemon rind.

  3. Pour mixture into a buttered mold.

  4. Steam for 1 hour and 20 minutes.

  5. Serve with a sauce of your choice.

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. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Provides structure as it sets with the eggs and milk, giving the pudding body.
Eggs
Set the pudding during steaming and add richness and structure.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to a soft, moist crumb.
Crystallized ginger
Provides the main ginger flavour and a chewy bite.

The step that matters

Add eggs one at a time. Eggs added to a hot mixture can scramble or curdle if the base is too warm, so letting it cool slightly first helps keep the batter smooth and evenly set.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, milk, cream, egg, lemon. 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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