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Dessert

Ginger Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, suet, ginger, baking powder, milk, golden syrup, and a pinch of 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 ↓

Ginger Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the flour, suet, ginger, baking powder, and a pinch of salt together in a bowl.

  2. Stir in the golden syrup and milk until well combined.

Steam and serve

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

  2. Steam for about 2 hours.

  3. Serve with custard or cornflour 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. Ginger + syruptop 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. Ginger + milktop 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 main structure as the starch that sets when steamed.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it steams.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the pudding rise and become light.
Golden syrup
Adds sweetness and a rich, moist texture to the pudding.
Milk
Hydrates the flour so the batter binds into a soft, cohesive dough.

The step that matters

Cover the basin tightly with greased paper. Greased paper lets the pudding rise and release steam without sticking, while keeping moisture in. A poor seal lets water in or dries the pudding out during the long steam.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, syrup. 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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