Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
Steam Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Beat the egg and mix in the sugar in a bowl.
Add the milk and melted butter, then stir in the flour and baking powder.
Mix until smooth and pour into a greased pudding mold.
Steam and serve
Cover and steam for 1½ hours.
Serve with sweet sauce.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the pudding as the starches set.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the wet batter, helping the pudding rise and turn light.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and helps the batter form a smooth, pourable mix.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps keep the crumb tender.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender texture.
The step that matters
Pour the batter promptly once mixed. Baking powder starts releasing gas as soon as it meets liquid, so the batter should go into the mold right after mixing. Waiting lets some of that lift escape before steaming sets the structure.
“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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