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Dessert

Steamed Cherry Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, butter, milk, and cherries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Steamed Cherry Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt.

  2. Add the softened butter and milk, and mix until a dough forms.

Assemble and steam

  1. Roll the dough thin and spread it thickly with cherries.

  2. Roll the dough up tightly and place it in a steamer.

  3. Steam for 3 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve cold 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Flour and butter 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the dough that holds the roll together.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the dough so the baking soda can react and help it rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the dough to produce gas that lightens the texture.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and gives it richness.
Milk
Hydrates the flour so the dough comes together and adds moisture.
Cherries
Provide fruit flavor and moisture within the rolled pudding.

The step that matters

Roll the dough up tightly. Rolling the dough thin and tight keeps the cherries enclosed and prevents gaps where steam or juice can escape or the roll can unravel during steaming.

“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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