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Dessert

Wedding Cake Pudding

A steamed pudding made with molasses, milk, butter, flour, spices, and rose water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Wedding Cake Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine molasses, milk, and butter.

  2. Gradually add flour, mixing until smooth.

  3. Stir in grated nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, baking soda, and rose water.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for 3 hours.

  3. Serve with sauce.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and a deep, sweet flavor to the batter.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist crumb.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a smooth, pourable batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acid to lift and lighten the pudding.

The step that matters

Keep the steaming water at a steady simmer. Steaming gently and evenly cooks the batter through without drying it out or leaving it dense. Water that boils dry or drops too low can leave the pudding undercooked or uneven over the long 3-hour steam.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Allspicethe original
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, butter, flour, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove. 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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