Name: Jeff Davis Pudding
Ingredients: 1 cup butter or suet; 1 cup sour milk; 1 cup molasses; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 cup raisins; Flour, enough to make a stiff batter; 1 teaspoon ground cloves; 1 teaspoon allspice

Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Jeff Davis Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

In a bowl, combine the butter or suet, sour milk, molasses, and baking soda.
Stir in the raisins, ground cloves, and allspice.
Add flour gradually until you achieve a stiff batter.

Steam the pudding

Grease a pan and pour the batter into it.
Steam the pudding for 3 to 5 hours.

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.

Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,070 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Raisin + allspicetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,475 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter or suet: Adds fat that keeps the pudding rich and moist as it steams.
Sour milk: Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to lift and lighten the batter.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, dark colour and a moist, dense texture.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that raises the pudding.
Flour: Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Raisins: Add pockets of sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

Swap the allspice

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

Cinnamonfits better
Nutmegfits better
Cardamomfits about as well
Allspicethe original

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