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Dessert

Thanksgiving Pudding

A baked pudding made with crackers, milk, butter, sugar, spices, eggs, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Thanksgiving Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Soak the rolled crackers in the milk.

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Add salt, mixed spices, and beaten eggs to the mixture.

Prepare and bake

  1. Butter a deep pudding dish.

  2. Pour the mixture into the dish.

  3. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 3 to 4 hours.

  4. Stir several times during baking to prevent the raisins from settling.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the pudding its firm, sliceable structure.
Crackers
Soak up the milk and form the body of the pudding, giving it a soft, tender texture.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that keeps the pudding moist as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the savory spices and salt.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy pockets throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Stirring during baking. Raisins are denser than the liquid batter and sink as it heats. Stirring several times while the custard sets keeps them evenly distributed instead of settling in a layer at the bottom.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, sugar, egg. 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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