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Dessert

Canary Pudding

A steamed pudding made with eggs, butter, sugar, flour, candied orange peel, and baking powder.

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 ↓

Canary Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Beat the eggs well, then add them alternately with the flour to the butter and sugar mixture until fully combined.

  3. Mix in the chopped candied orange peel and baking powder.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased mold, cover with greased paper, and steam for 2 hours.

  2. Serve with a sweet 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  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. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Eggs
Provide structure and richness, setting the crumb as they cook.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender, rich crumb and a smooth texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps create a light, creamed base.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the crumb as it cooks.
Baking powder
Releases gas during steaming to lift and lighten the pudding.
Candied orange peel
Adds bright, aromatic sweetness and chewy bits throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam for 2 hours. Steaming gently and steadily cooks the batter through without drying it. Letting the water boil dry or the steam drop can leave the pudding dense or undercooked in the center.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, sugar, 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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