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Dessert

Blackberry Pudding or Other Berries

A steamed pudding made with flour, berries, sweet milk, syrup, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Blackberry Pudding or Other Berries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix a little flour with the fresh berries.

  2. In another bowl, combine the remaining flour, salt, and baking soda.

  3. Add sweet milk and syrup or molasses to the dry ingredients and stir until smooth.

  4. Gently fold in the berries to avoid breaking them.

Steam and serve

  1. Grease a mold with butter and pour in the batter.

  2. Place the mold in boiling water, ensuring the water does not reach the top.

  3. Boil for at least 2 hours without interruption.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + syruptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,540 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Milk + syruptop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,143 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic syrup or molasses to lighten the batter.
Fresh berries
Add moisture, tartness and color throughout the pudding.
Syrup or molasses
Adds sweetness and a deep flavor, and helps the baking soda react.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and helps form a smooth, pourable batter.

The step that matters

Fold in the berries gently. Berries are soft and burst easily. Folding them in gently keeps them whole and prevents the batter from turning purple and streaked with juice.

“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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