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Dessert

Boiled Molasses Pudding

A boiled pudding made with butter, molasses, milk, raisins, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, spices, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Boiled Molasses Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk.

  2. Sift the cream of tartar into the flour.

  3. In a large bowl, combine the butter, molasses, milk, raisins, flour, spices, and salt. Mix well until combined.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a mold.

  2. Boil for 4 hours.

  3. Serve with sauce.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 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

Butter
Adds richness and moisture, giving the pudding a tender crumb.
Molasses
Provides sweetness, depth of flavor, and dark color.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar and moisture to lighten the batter.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda to help it rise.
Milk
Supplies moisture and dissolves the baking soda into the batter.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into a mold. The batter must be fully combined before molding so the leavening is evenly distributed. Filling the mold too full leaves no room for the pudding to rise during steaming or boiling.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Raisinthe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, molasses, milk, flour, cream. 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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