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Dessert

Black-cap Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, sugar, currants, milk, and egg.

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

Black-cap Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a basin, combine the flour and salt, making a well in the center.

  2. Break the egg into the well, then gradually add the milk, stirring and incorporating the flour from the sides.

  3. Once half the milk is added, beat the batter well, then add the remaining milk, sugar, and currants.

  4. Let the batter stand for 1 hour for a lighter pudding, if desired.

Steam and serve

  1. Cover with greased paper and steam for 14 hours.

  2. Serve with melted butter.

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 + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Currant + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Egg
Binds the batter and helps give the pudding its set structure as it cooks.
Flour
Forms the batter's structure, setting firm as the starch cooks in the steam.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture, keeping the pudding tender.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and fruity flavor, with a little chew after steaming.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes mildly to browning and flavor.

The step that matters

Incorporating the milk gradually. Adding the liquid slowly into the well lets the egg and flour blend smoothly, preventing lumps. Beating the batter well then develops a smooth, even texture before the rest of the milk goes in.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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