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Dessert

Steam Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, flour, currants, apple, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,918 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Steam Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix

  1. In a large bowl, combine the suet, flour, currants, chopped apple, and baking soda. Mix well until all ingredients are evenly incorporated.

Steam

  1. Transfer the mixture to a pudding mold or a heatproof bowl.

  2. Cover the mold with a lid or aluminum foil.

  3. Boil or steam the pudding for 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. Currant + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Flour + appletop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,140 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,077 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together.
Baking soda
Reacts to lighten the batter and help it rise.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy pockets of fruit throughout the pudding.
Apple
Adds moisture and mild tartness that balances the sweet currants.

The step that matters

Covering the mold before steaming. A tight lid or sealed foil traps steam so the pudding cooks gently and stays moist. If the cover leaks, water can enter and the pudding dries out or turns soggy.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Quincefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, apple. 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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