Skip to main content
Dessert

Fruit Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, molasses, and spices, served with egg sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Fruit Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the sugar with the egg.

  2. Mix half of the baking soda into the buttermilk and the other half into the molasses.

  3. Stir the buttermilk and molasses mixtures into the beaten egg and sugar.

  4. Add the spices and floured fruit, then mix well.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered mold and steam for three hours.

  2. Serve with egg 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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

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

  4. Buttermilk + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the pudding sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk and molasses to lighten the pudding.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and tang, and reacts with the baking soda to help rising.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness with a hint of bitterness.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and contributes to a tender, moist crumb.
Mixed raisins, currants, and citron
Adds chewy texture and concentrated fruit sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Splitting the baking soda between buttermilk and molasses. Baking soda needs an acid to react and produce gas. Adding it to the acidic buttermilk and molasses separately lets it react evenly, so the pudding rises rather than clumping or staying dense.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, buttermilk, raisin, clove, sugar, molasses, cinnamon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, buttermilk, raisin, clove, sugar, molasses, cinnamon. 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.

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipes