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Dessert

Treacle Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, suet, treacle, milk, egg, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Treacle Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pudding

  1. Boil a large saucepan of water.

  2. Chop ¼ lb of suet finely after removing the skin.

  3. In a bowl, combine 1 lb of flour, ¼ teaspoon salt, and 1 teaspoon baking powder.

  4. Add the chopped suet and 1 teaspoon ground ginger, mixing well.

  5. In another bowl, mix ½ cup treacle, ½ cup milk, and 1 egg.

  6. Stir this mixture into the dry ingredients, adding more milk if needed to achieve a moist but stiff consistency.

  7. Grease a quart basin and pour the mixture into it, ensuring it is full to prevent water from spoiling the pudding.

  8. Sprinkle flour over the top, cover with a cloth, and tie it tightly with string.

Steam and serve

  1. Once the water is boiling, place the pudding in the saucepan and boil for 2 hours.

  2. Remove the pudding from the saucepan, take off the cloth, and serve.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Ginger + milktop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,519 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Forms the structure of the pudding batter as it steams.
Suet
Adds richness and a tender, moist texture as it melts during cooking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to lighten the pudding as it heats.
Treacle
Adds sweetness, dark colour and a rich molasses flavour.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps give the pudding its set structure.
Milk
Adds moisture so the batter reaches a moist but stiff consistency.

The step that matters

Fill the basin completely before steaming. A full basin leaves little air space, so the pudding keeps its shape and water cannot seep in and spoil it during the long boil.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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