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Dessert

Fruit Pudding

A steamed pudding made with molasses, sweet milk, butter, raisins, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Fruit Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix together molasses, sweet milk, and butter until well combined.

  2. Stir in the seeded raisins, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam the pudding for 4 to 5 hours.

  3. Serve with a rich 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color and a deep sweetness to the pudding.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Cream of tartar
Provides acidity that activates the baking soda for rising.
Raisins
Add sweetness, chewy texture and moisture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam the pudding for 4 to 5 hours. Steaming must stay gentle and steady so the pudding cooks through evenly. Letting the water boil dry or drop too low can leave the center dense or underdone, while a tightly sealed mold needs room to expand as the batter rises.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

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

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