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Dessert

Molasses Fruit Pudding

A sweet pudding made with suet, flour, molasses, raisins, and spices, boiled or steamed for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Molasses Fruit Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Chop the suet finely and place it in a large bowl.

  2. Add salt and cinnamon, then mix in the flour.

  3. Dissolve baking soda in water and add it to the molasses and cold water.

  4. Stir the molasses mixture into the flour mixture and beat well.

  5. Fold in the floured raisins.

Cook

  1. Turn the mixture into a greased pudding mold or kettle.

  2. Boil or steam for 4 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 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

Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses to lighten the batter and help it rise.
New orleans molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and a deep flavor to the pudding.
Raisins
Add pockets of chewy sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil or steam for 4 hours. Steady, gentle heat cooks the batter through evenly. If the water boils dry or drops to a simmer for long, the pudding can cook unevenly or turn heavy and dense.

“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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