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Black Pudding

A sweet black pudding made with molasses, butter, sugar, flour, sour milk, eggs, nutmeg, and baking soda, steamed and served with a butter‑sugar sauce.

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

Black Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Add the beaten eggs, then mix in the molasses and grated nutmeg.

  3. Gradually add the flour and sour milk, mixing well.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in a little warm water and add to the mixture.

  5. Pour the batter into a greased mold and steam for 3 hours.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, cream together ½ cup butter and 1 cup sugar.

  2. In a saucepan, bring 1½ cups water to a boil.

  3. Thicken the boiling water with flour until it reaches a cream‑like consistency.

  4. Remove from heat and quickly stir in the butter and sugar mixture until foamy.

  5. Flavor the sauce to taste.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set during steaming.
Flour
Provides the structure of the pudding and thickens the sauce when cooked with water.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds tenderness to the batter.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and deep sweetness to the pudding.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and richness to both the pudding and sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda. Baking soda needs an acid, here the sour milk and molasses, to release gas. Dissolving it in warm water and stirring it in promptly keeps the batter light; delay lets the gas escape before steaming sets the pudding.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

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