Name: Steamed Apricot Pudding
Ingredients: 4 oz flour; 4 oz dried apricots (or other fruit like raisins, dates, or figs); 2 oz breadcrumbs; 2 teaspoons treacle; 2 oz suet; 1 teaspoon baking powder; 3 oz brown sugar; ¼ teaspoon salt; Milk or water as needed

Why it works: Apricot and milk work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 826 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Steamed Apricot Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Soak the breadcrumbs in milk until soft, then beat until smooth.
Cut the dried apricots into small pieces (soak overnight if using dried fruit).

Mix and steam

Mix the flour, breadcrumbs, fruit, treacle, suet, baking powder, brown sugar, and salt in a greased basin.
Add enough milk or water to achieve a smooth batter.
Cover the basin.
Steam for 1.5 hours.

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.

Apricot + milktop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together826 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,630 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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 main structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Breadcrumbs: Soak up liquid and help give the pudding a soft, moist crumb.
Suet: Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender during steaming.
Baking powder: Releases gas as it reacts with moisture and heat, lifting the batter so it rises.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and moisture, and a deeper caramel-like flavour.
Treacle: Adds sweetness, moisture and a rich, dark flavour.

The step that matters

Covering the basin before steaming. A tight cover traps steam around the batter so it cooks gently and stays moist. A loose cover lets steam escape and water condense in, which can make the top wet and the crumb uneven.

Swap the apricot

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

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Figfits better
Apricotthe original

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

Apricot Ice Cream26 recipes

Mixed Fruit Sherbet6 recipes

White Cake431 recipes

Pound Cake373 recipes

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Steamed Apricot Pudding