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Dessert

Black Pudding

A sweet molasses and raisin pudding baked in a steaming dish.

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

Black Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine molasses, raisins, flour, warm water, melted butter, baking soda, salt, cloves, and cinnamon, and mix until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a steaming dish.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for 2 hours.

  2. Serve with sauce or whipped cream flavored with vanilla.

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 + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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, slightly bitter sweetness.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together once steamed.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to lighten the batter and help it rise.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and pockets of concentrated sweetness.
Melted butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.

The step that matters

Mixing the batter with baking soda. Baking soda needs an acidic partner such as molasses to react and leaven the batter. Mixing it in evenly keeps the pudding from being dense or patchy in some spots.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Allspicefits about as well

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

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