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Dessert

Plain Boiled Pudding

A simple pudding made with sour cream, molasses, butter, flour, baking soda, and salt, boiled in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Plain Boiled Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the molasses and melted butter together and beat until very light.

  2. Stir in the sour cream and salt.

  3. Gradually add the flour until a smooth batter forms.

  4. Thoroughly beat in the dissolved baking soda.

Boil and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered mold and boil for 1½ hours.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cream + molassestop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,408 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, 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

Flour
Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the pudding its body and structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and sour cream to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and a deep flavor, and its acidity activates the baking soda.
Sour cream
Adds moisture, richness and acidity that helps the batter rise and stay tender.
Melted butter
Contributes fat for tenderness and a rich mouthfeel in the finished pudding.

The step that matters

Thoroughly beat in the dissolved baking soda. Baking soda must be evenly distributed through the batter so it reacts with the acidic molasses and sour cream. Uneven mixing leaves pockets of gas-producing reaction, causing a coarse, uneven crumb.

“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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