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Dessert

Spice Pudding

A baked pudding made with butter, flour, sugar, molasses, buttermilk, eggs, spices, and baking soda.

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

Spice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the beaten eggs, buttermilk, and molasses; mix well.

  3. In another bowl, combine the flour, nutmeg, cinnamon, and baking soda.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until smooth.

  5. Pour the batter into a greased baking dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Serve warm with hot 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. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and richness, creaming with sugar traps air for a tender crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps it brown as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set its structure during baking.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark sweetness and a rich, deep flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk and molasses to make the pudding rise.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding the flour in portions and stirring until just smooth keeps the batter from becoming lumpy or overworked. Overmixing develops gluten, which can make the finished pudding dense and tough.

“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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