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Dessert

Blackberry Pudding, Boiled

A boiled pudding made with flour, blackberries, suet, molasses, milk, brown sugar, baking soda, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Blackberry Pudding, Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix together the suet, milk, molasses, and brown sugar.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in the boiling water and add it to the mixture.

  3. Gradually add half of the flour, mixing well, then add the remaining flour and the blackberries.

Steam and serve

  1. Grease a mold and fill it with the mixture, leaving room for the pudding to swell.

  2. In a pot, bring water to a boil, cover the mold tightly, and place it in the boiling water.

  3. Boil for 3 hours and 30 minutes or steam for 4 hours.

  4. Serve with pudding sauce, and if any is left, slice and fry in butter the next day.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 structure that holds the pudding together once steamed.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses and brown sugar to lift the pudding as it steams.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and a deep, slightly acidic sweetness.
Blackberries
Add fruit moisture and tart flavor that cut through the sweetness.

The step that matters

Leave room in the mold for the pudding to swell. The baking soda and steam make the batter rise as it cooks. A tightly filled mold can overflow or make the pudding dense, so space is needed for expansion.

“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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