Skip to main content
Dessert

Concord Pudding

A sweet pudding made with molasses, sweet milk, butter or suet, raisins, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, spices, and salt.

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

Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Concord Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix together molasses, sweet milk, and melted butter or suet.

  2. Stir in the stoned raisins, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, spices, and salt until well combined.

Cook

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Boil for 4 to 5 hours or steam until set.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Molasses + raisintop 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

Molasses
Adds dark sweetness, depth of flavour and moisture to the pudding.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Butter or suet
Adds fat, which gives the pudding a rich, tender texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic ingredients to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Cream of tartar
Acts as an acid that works with baking soda to help the pudding rise.
Stoned raisins
Add sweetness, chewy texture and moisture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil for 4 to 5 hours or steam until set. The pudding must cook long and gently so the flour starch and batter fully set through to the centre. Keeping the water at a steady simmer and topping up the water prevents a soggy or underdone middle.

Swap the raisin

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

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

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

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesMolasses Sponge CakeMolasses Sponge Cake9 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes