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Dessert

Steamed Pudding

A steamed pudding made with butter, milk, sugar, eggs, walnuts, raisins, baking powder, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Steamed Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the egg yolks and milk, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the walnuts, baking powder, raisins, and flour until combined.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for 40 minutes.

  3. Serve with maple syrup and whipped cream.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Walnut + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Walnut + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

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

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air, giving a light, fluffy texture and richness.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it heats, helping the pudding rise and become tender.
Eggs
Add structure and binding, helping the batter set and hold its shape.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps the batter reach a soft, even consistency.

The step that matters

Steam for 40 minutes. Steam must stay steady and the mold must stay covered so moisture cooks the batter evenly. Too little heat or steam leaves the centre dense and underset.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

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