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Dessert

Ginger Pudding

A steamed ginger pudding made with butter, sugar, eggs, molasses, flour, milk, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Ginger Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream the softened butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the eggs and beat well.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the molasses and add it to the mixture.

  4. Sift together the flour, cream of tartar, ginger, and salt, then add to the mixture alternately with the milk.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a greased pudding mold and steam for 1½ hours.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during steaming.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and cream of tartar to make the pudding rise and turn lighter.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color and a rich, sweet flavor to the pudding.
Cream of tartar
Acts as an acid that works with the baking soda to produce gas for rising.
Flour
Forms the main structure that sets the pudding as it steams.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich texture.

The step that matters

Adding the dissolved baking soda to the molasses mixture. Baking soda only leavens well when it reacts with an acid such as molasses or cream of tartar. Dissolving it fully and mixing it in evenly keeps the rise even and prevents pockets of bitter, unreacted soda.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

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