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Dessert

Ginger Puddings

A sweet pudding made with milk, molasses, flour, eggs, spices, butter, and raisins, boiled for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Ginger Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Mix the sweet milk, molasses, flour, eggs, baking soda, salt, butter, cloves, ginger, cinnamon, and raisins until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding dish.

Cook

  1. Boil for four hours in a covered pot or pail.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and a deep sweetness with a slight bitterness.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help give the pudding its set, firm texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to help the pudding rise and lighten.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.

The step that matters

Keep the pot covered and the water boiling for the full four hours. Steaming in a covered pot keeps moisture in, so the pudding cooks through without drying out. Letting the water level drop or the lid lift lets steam escape and can leave the pudding dry or unevenly cooked.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, molasses, flour, egg, butter, clove, 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.

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