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Dessert

Black Pudding

A steamed and baked sweet pudding made with black molasses, flour, butter, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Black Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the pudding

  1. In a bowl, mix black molasses, butter, sour milk, flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and cloves.

  2. Pour the mixture into a mold and steam for 1 hour.

  3. After steaming, place in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 5 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, beat together sugar and butter until creamy.

  2. Add the egg and vinegar to the sauce mixture and cook in a double boiler until thick.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Black molasses
Provides dark colour, moisture and a rich, slightly bitter sweetness.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to help the pudding rise.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the pudding and the sauce.
Egg
Thickens the sauce as it cooks and adds richness.

The step that matters

Cooking the sauce in a double boiler. Egg and sugar mixtures can curdle or scramble if heated too fast. Gentle, indirect heat lets the egg thicken the sauce smoothly.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, butter, milk, flour, cinnamon, sugar, sauce. 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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