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Dessert

Ginger Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, sugar, golden syrup, suet, baking powder, ginger, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Ginger Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine flour, sugar, golden syrup, suet, baking powder, and ginger.

  2. Add water gradually to create a thin batter.

  3. Pour the batter into a greased pudding mold.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for 2 hours.

  2. 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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the main structure that sets the pudding as it cooks and steams.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding tender and moist.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking so the pudding rises and becomes light.
Golden syrup
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps give the pudding its rich flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the strong ginger flavour.
Ginger
Gives the pudding its warm, spicy aroma and flavour.

The step that matters

Add water gradually to the batter. Flour absorbs water as it is mixed, so adding too much at once can make the batter runny. A runny batter may not hold its shape or rise evenly in the mold. Adding water a little at a time lets you stop at a thin but workable batter.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, 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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