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Dessert

Ginger Pudding

A steamed pudding made with molasses, sour milk, ginger, baking soda, egg, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Ginger Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk.

  2. Mix the dissolved soda with the molasses.

  3. Add the egg and enough flour to create a stiff batter.

Steam

  1. Steam the mixture for 2.5 to 3 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.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Ginger + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, dark colour and a deep flavour to the pudding.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to make the pudding rise.
Egg
Helps bind the batter and gives it structure as it cooks.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the stiff batter together during steaming.
Ginger
Supplies the warm, spicy aroma that defines the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam the mixture for 2.5 to 3 hours. Steaming cooks the batter gently and evenly with moist heat, so it sets through without drying out or browning. The long time lets the rising from the soda and the set from the egg and flour finish fully.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, egg, butter, 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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