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Dessert

Jeff Davis Pudding

A sweet pudding made with flour, molasses, beef suet, spices, sugar, butter, egg white, wine or whiskey, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Jeff Davis Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a large bowl, combine flour, molasses, beef suet, and spices.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a ½ gallon bucket.

  3. Boil for 3 to 4 hours.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. For the sauce, cream together sugar, butter, and egg white.

  2. Add a little wine or whiskey and nutmeg to the sauce.

  3. Serve the pudding hot with the 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. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness to the pudding.
Beef suet
Adds fat, which keeps the pudding moist and rich during long cooking.
New orleans sugar
Sweetens the sauce and helps it become smooth and creamy when creamed with butter.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth texture to the sauce.
Egg white
Helps bind and lighten the sauce as it is creamed.

The step that matters

Boil for 3 to 4 hours. The pudding must cook long enough for the flour and suet to set fully and the interior to become cooked through. Keeping the water boiling steadily, and topping it up as needed, helps the pudding cook evenly without drying out.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Clovefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, molasses, beef, sugar, butter, egg, wine. 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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