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Dessert

Steamed Pudding

A steamed pudding made with molasses, flour, sweet milk, raisins, currants, spices, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Steamed Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine molasses, flour, sweet milk, baking soda, melted butter, salt, raisins, cinnamon, currants, nutmeg, and cloves, then mix until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for three hours until cooked through.

  2. Serve warm.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds dark sweetness and moisture, and a rich flavour that suits the spices.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acid to lighten the pudding and help it rise.
Melted butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavour.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and helps the batter bind into a soft crumb.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam until cooked through. Steaming gently heats the batter evenly without drying it, but the pudding needs the full steaming time to set in the centre. Lifting the lid too often lets steam escape and slows cooking, so the pudding may end up underdone.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, flour, milk, butter, raisin, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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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