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Dessert

Amherst Pudding

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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 ↓

Amherst Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a large bowl, combine sour milk, molasses, raisins, currants, flour, suet, salt, baking soda, and spices. Mix until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  3. Boil for 5 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with pudding 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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 dense pudding together as it steams.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tang.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and a deep sweetness to the pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender during long cooking.
Raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil for 5 hours. Steaming for the full time cooks the dense batter through and sets its texture. Keep the water boiling steadily and topped up, since a pudding that cooks too briefly stays heavy and gummy in the centre.

Swap the currant

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

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

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