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Dessert

Spice Pudding

A steamed pudding made with milk, flour, molasses, cornmeal, spices, suet or butter, and dried fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Spice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine milk, flour, molasses, cornmeal, allspice, suet or butter, salt, baking soda, cloves, cinnamon, and raisins or fruit. Mix until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a mold with a chimney.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for 3 hours.

  2. Let cool before serving.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Provides dark sweetness and moisture, and gives the pudding its characteristic colour and flavour.
Cornmeal
Gives the pudding a coarse, hearty texture and body.
All-purpose flour
Provides structure so the batter holds together after steaming.
Suet or butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to help the pudding rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Let cool before serving. A steamed pudding is soft and fragile when hot. Letting it rest lets the starches and fats set, so it firms up and holds its shape when turned out and sliced.

Swap the raisin

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, molasses, allspice, butter, clove, 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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