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Dessert

Nut Pudding

A steamed pudding made with graham flour, walnuts, raisins, molasses, and milk, topped with a butter‑sugar‑cornstarch sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Nut Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a large bowl, mix graham flour, salt, baking powder, walnuts, raisins, milk, and molasses.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased mold and steam for 3 hours.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt butter in a bowl and mix in powdered sugar.

  2. Thicken boiling milk with cornstarch.

  3. Add the thickened milk to the butter and sugar mixture.

  4. Let the sauce cool.

Finish and serve

  1. Fold in the beaten egg white just before serving.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 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

Graham flour
Forms the bulk and structure of the dense, moist pudding.
Baking powder
Releases gas during steaming, helping the pudding rise and lighten.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep brown color.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce, giving it a smooth mouthfeel.
Cornstarch
Thickens the boiling milk so the sauce becomes smooth and body-rich.
Egg white
Folded in at the end to add airiness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg white just before serving. Beaten egg white holds air in a foam that deflates over time. Folding it in gently at the last moment keeps the sauce light instead of heavy and flat.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

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