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Dessert

Honey-comb Pudding

A sweet baked pudding made with sugar, butter, milk, flour, eggs, raisins, baking soda, and molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Honey-comb 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.

Prepare

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

  2. In a bowl, stir together the flour and sugar.

  3. Melt the butter in the warmed milk.

  4. Pour the melted butter and milk mixture over the flour and sugar, and stir to combine.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs until light and fluffy, then stir them into the mixture.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the molasses and baking soda until foaming, then add to the batter.

  3. Fold in the raisins.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking dish and bake for 40 minutes.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Beaten eggs add structure and lightness as the batter sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with molasses to foam and release gas, helping the pudding rise and turn airy.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the pudding as its starches set during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, giving the pudding a soft, moist crumb.
Molasses
Adds depth and dark sweetness, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda.

The step that matters

Mixing the molasses and baking soda until foaming. The baking soda must react with the acidic molasses before going into the batter. This gas release is what lifts the pudding, so the foam should be visible before it is added.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Raisinthe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Peachfits less well

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