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Dessert

Buffalo Pudding

A steamed fruit pudding made with flour, baking powder, cornstarch, butter, and berries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Buffalo Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the baking powder with the flour thoroughly.

  2. Add the salt and cornstarch, then mix to the consistency of drop cake.

  3. Melt the butter and stir it into the mixture.

Layer and steam

  1. In a buttered tin pail or steamer, drop part of the mixture.

  2. Layer with berries or dried fruit, then cover with more batter.

  3. Ensure the water is boiling and the pail is tightly covered.

  4. Steam the pudding 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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Forms the main structure of the pudding as it steams.
Baking powder
Releases gas during steaming so the pudding rises and turns light.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that softens the crumb.
Cornstarch
Tenderizes the crumb by diluting the flour's gluten-forming proteins.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling and the pail tightly covered. Steam is what cooks and lifts the pudding. If the water stops boiling or steam escapes, the batter cooks unevenly and may turn heavy or soggy.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, egg. 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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