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Dessert

Cup Pudding

A steamed pudding made with molasses, butter, sour milk, spices, raisins, currants, and pastry flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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 ↓

Cup Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the baking soda with the molasses and heat until light-colored.

  2. Add the melted butter and sour milk to the molasses mixture.

  3. In another bowl, combine the pastry flour with the spices.

  4. Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients, then fold in the raisins and currants.

Steam

  1. Fill cups half full with the batter.

  2. Steam the cups for one hour.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Provides sweetness and a dark color, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and sour milk to produce gas that leavens the pudding.
Sour milk
Adds acidity to activate the baking soda and contributes moisture and tenderness.
Pastry flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together after steaming.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a moist, tender crumb.

The step that matters

Heat the baking soda and molasses until light-colored. Heating helps the baking soda react fully with the acidic molasses so the gas is released and the batter rises evenly. Adding the flour before this reaction is finished can leave the pudding dense or uneven.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, butter, milk, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, raisin. 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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