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Dessert

White House Pudding

A steamed pudding made from cake crumbs, molasses, raisins, eggs, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

White House Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Combine the dry cake crumbs, molasses, eggs, raisins, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg in a large bowl and mix until well combined.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a greased pudding mold.

Steam

  1. Steam the pudding for 3 hours.

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 + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

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

  2. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Molasses + nutmegtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,850 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Egg + raisintop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,556 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Dry cake crumbs
Form the bulk of the pudding and absorb the liquid to give it body.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture with a deep flavor.
Eggs
Bind the crumbs together and help the pudding set as it cooks.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and pockets of sweetness throughout.
Baking powder
Releases gas during steaming, lightening the texture so it is not dense.

The step that matters

Steam the pudding for 3 hours. Steaming gently and for the full time sets the eggs and cooks the crumb through. Too little time leaves a wet, unset center, and the pudding needs enough moisture in the steam to stay tender.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, egg, raisin):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Allspicefits less well
  4. Clovefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, egg, 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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