Skip to main content
Dessert

Cheap Fruit Pudding

A steamed pudding made with butter, molasses, dates, currants, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cheap Fruit Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg without separating it, then add molasses, brown sugar, and milk.

  2. Sift together all dry ingredients and mix thoroughly with the wet ingredients.

  3. Add the chopped dates and currants, and mix again.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a well-greased mold, filling it no more than two-thirds full.

  2. Cover the mold and place it in a steamer or on a rack in hot water.

  3. Cook for three hours after boiling starts, ensuring the water level stays high but does not enter the mold.

  4. Serve with hard sauce or any preferred 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 + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Nutmeg + datestop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together194 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets during steaming.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the pudding once heated.
Baking powder
Releases gas during steaming so the pudding rises and turns light.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Dates
Add moisture and natural sweetness to the pudding.

The step that matters

Keeping the water level below the mold while steaming. If water enters the mold, the batter becomes waterlogged and cooks unevenly. Steady, gentle boiling with water kept outside the mold lets the pudding set evenly over the three hours.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, molasses, sugar, nutmeg, flour, dates, 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.

More fruit pudding recipes

Steamed 91Boiled 17Cold 14English 14Baked 12Tapioca 11 See all 210 →

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesCurrant Ice CreamCurrant Ice Cream32 recipes