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Dessert

Black Pudding

A sweet molasses and raisin pudding made with milk, butter, baking soda, and flour, steamed until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Black Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine molasses, milk, and butter.

  2. Add baking soda, cream of tartar, and flavoring; mix well.

  3. Stir in raisins and enough flour to form a thick batter.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a greased mold.

  2. Steam for 3 hours until cooked through.

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
Provides dark sweetness, moisture and a rich, distinctive flavor to the pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and cream of tartar to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so the baking soda reacts and helps the pudding rise.
Flour
Forms the structure that sets the batter into a firm, cohesive pudding when steamed.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Steam for 3 hours until cooked through. Steaming gently and steadily cooks the thick batter through without drying it. Lifting the lid or letting the water boil low can cause uneven setting, so the pudding may stay doughy in the center.

Swap the raisin

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

  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, cream, flour. 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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