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Dessert

Gingerbread Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, ginger, sugar, treacle, baking powder, flour, bread crumbs, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Gingerbread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.

  2. Dissolve the treacle in the milk and add to the dry mixture.

  3. Beat all ingredients well together until smooth.

Cook

  1. Place the mixture in a well‑floured cloth and tie securely.

  2. Boil in a pot of water for 3 hours.

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Ginger + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Ginger + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

Flour
Provides bulk and structure so the pudding holds its shape when boiled.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and give the pudding a soft, moist body.
Suet
Adds fat, which gives a richer texture and mouthfeel.
Treacle
Adds sweetness and deep flavour, and helps the pudding brown slightly.
Baking powder
Releases gas to lighten the pudding and give it some rise.

The step that matters

Tying the cloth. The cloth must be well floured and tied firmly so the pudding keeps its shape and the floured surface forms a skin that prevents the mixture from sticking or falling apart while boiling.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, bread, 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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