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Dessert

Pudding

A thick pudding made from cold milk, eggs, butter, molasses, and sea salt, baked slowly for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the mixture

  1. Boil the milk in a large pot for 30 minutes, stirring frequently.

  2. Remove from heat and add salt, butter, and molasses, then beat well.

  3. Gradually beat in the cold milk and the well-beaten eggs.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish.

  2. Place the dish in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

  3. Bake for 5 hours without letting the pudding bubble.

  4. Adjust oven heat if necessary.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  4. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Butter + molassestop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,123 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base and provides moisture for the pudding.
Eggs
Set as the pudding bakes, giving it a firm, custard-like structure.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, softer texture.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, deep flavor and dark color.

The step that matters

Keep the bake gentle and avoid bubbling. Eggs set into a custard when heated slowly. If the pudding bubbles, the heat is too high, which can make the custard curdle, turn rough, or separate into a watery layer.

“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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