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Dessert

Molasses Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, molasses, butter, water, raisins, currants, suet, eggs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Sterrett, Laura C · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 23 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 Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Take half a pound flour, half a pound raisins stoned and chopped, and some currants, washed, picked and dried; use milk enough to stir easily with a spoon; add half a pound of suet chopped fine, a tea-spoon of salt, and four well beaten eggs.

  2. Mix very stiff and let stand overnight.

  3. Thin it a little and tie very tight in bags and boil for six or eight hours.

Cook and serve

  1. Tie in a floured cloth and boil for four hours. The water must boil when it is put in and continue boiling until it is done.

  2. Steam for three hours.

  3. Serve with a sauce of butter and sugar worked to a cream, with hot water added to make it of proper consistency, and flavored with vanilla.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

1221Calories
54 gProtein
42 gFat
154 gCarbs

Counts 11 of 12 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 11 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Beef100g cooked250
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Molasses1 tbsp (20g)58
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Sterrett, Laura C. 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. See the original page.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set as it cooks, giving the pudding body.
Suet
Adds richness and moisture, giving a tender, fatty crumb.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling when the pudding goes in. Adding the pudding to water that is not yet boiling slows the heating and can make the texture heavy. Keeping the water at a full boil cooks the pudding evenly and sets its structure.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, molasses, butter, raisin, sugar, milk, beef):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, molasses, butter, raisin, sugar, milk, beef. 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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