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Dessert

Fruit Puddings

A steamed pudding made with flour, baking powder, salt, milk or water, melted butter, and fresh fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Fruit Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt.

  2. Add cold milk or water until the mixture is the consistency of drop biscuit.

  3. Stir in melted butter.

Assemble and steam

  1. Butter a mold or small tin pail.

  2. Layer the batter and fresh fruit alternately until the vessel is filled.

  3. Cover tightly and steam for 1.5 hours.

Serve

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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 and sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas during steaming, helping the pudding rise and become light.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Fresh small fruit
Adds moisture, flavor, and sweetness throughout the layers.

The step that matters

Cover tightly and steam. A tight cover keeps steam trapped around the pudding so it cooks evenly and stays moist. If steam escapes, the water level can drop and the pudding may dry out or cook unevenly.

“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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