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American Pudding

A steamed pudding made with gingerbread slices soaked in custard flavored with preserved ginger syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and syrup work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 950 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

American Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Whisk the eggs and milk together to make a cold custard.

  2. Flavor the custard with preserved ginger syrup.

Assemble the pudding

  1. Soak the gingerbread slices in a little of the custard.

  2. Place the soaked slices in a prepared mold.

  3. Pour the remaining custard over the slices.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam the pudding until set.

  2. Serve with 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. Ginger + syruptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together950 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. Milk + gingertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,519 recipes

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

  4. Milk + syruptop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,143 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Egg + syruptop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,995 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard and bind the pudding into a firm, sliceable texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, which softens the gingerbread and sets with the eggs.
Thin slices of superior gingerbread
Provide the bulk, structure and spiced sweetness of the pudding.
Preserved ginger syrup
Adds sweetness and ginger aroma to the custard.

The step that matters

Steam the pudding until set. Egg custard sets through gentle heat; if steamed too hard or too long, the eggs over-coagulate, leaving a curdled, spongy or watery texture instead of a smooth set.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Clovefits less well

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