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Dessert

Golden Syrup Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, golden syrup, suet, milk, baking soda, ginger, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Golden Syrup Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, suet or dripping, and salt.

  2. Add the baking soda and mix well.

  3. In a separate bowl, stir the golden syrup into the milk.

  4. Add the grated ginger to the milk mixture.

  5. Gradually pour the milk mixture over the flour mixture, beating well with a wooden spoon.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a well-buttered basin and cover with greased paper.

  2. Steam for 3 hours.

  3. Turn out and serve with 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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Syrup + gingertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together950 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Flour + syruptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,540 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Milk + gingertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,519 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Golden syrup
Adds sweetness, moisture and a rich caramel flavor to the pudding.
Suet or good dripping
Adds fat, which gives the pudding a tender, rich texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the syrup's acidity to lighten the batter and help it rise.

The step that matters

Beating the milk mixture into the flour. Pouring the liquid in gradually while beating keeps lumps from forming and develops the batter evenly. Thorough mixing gives the steamed pudding a smooth, uniform crumb.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, syrup, 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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