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Dessert

Boiled Whortleberry Pudding

A boiled pudding made with molasses, whortleberries, flour, baking soda, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boiled Whortleberry Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the baking soda in a spoonful of molasses.

  2. Stir the mixture into the remaining molasses.

  3. Add the whortleberries and sift in the flour.

  4. Add the grated nutmeg and mix well.

Cook and serve

  1. Tie the mixture tightly in a well-floured bag, leaving room for it to swell.

  2. Boil or steam for 3 to 4 hours.

  3. Serve hot with Fairy Butter.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Molasses + nutmegtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,850 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses to release gas, helping the pudding rise and lighten.
Molasses
Provides sweetness, dark color and moisture to the pudding.
Whortleberries
Add tart fruit flavor and moisture throughout the pudding.
All-purpose flour
Provides structure, binding the pudding as it cooks.

The step that matters

Tie the bag with room to swell. The batter rises as the baking soda reacts and the mixture heats. Tying it tightly without room to expand can cause the bag to burst or the pudding to turn dense.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, flour):

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, flour. 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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