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Dessert

Cherry Pudding

A steamed pudding made with stewed cherries and a batter of flour, baking powder, salt, egg, milk, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Cherry Pudding

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cherry Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Stew and pit the cherries.

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, and salt.

  3. Add the beaten egg and milk to the dry ingredients and mix well. Flavor the batter as desired.

Assemble and cook

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter over the stewed cherries.

  2. Cover the dish tightly and cook for 20 minutes.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

Cherries
Provide the fruit base and moisture that the batter cooks over.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the batter as it sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas that helps the batter rise and turn light.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a soft, tender batter.

The step that matters

Cover the dish tightly and cook for 20 minutes. Keeping the lid on traps steam, which cooks the dumplings through from the top while the cherries bubble below. Lifting the cover early lets steam escape and can leave the batter dense or underdone.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillathe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Blueberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, 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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