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Dessert

Poor Mans Pudding

A steamed pudding made with molasses, flour, raisins, eggs, citron, baking soda, sour milk, cloves, currants, cinnamon, and suet.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Poor Mans Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the molasses, flour, raisins, eggs, citron, baking soda, sour milk, ground cloves, currants, ground cinnamon, and suet until well combined.

Steam

  1. Transfer the mixture to a greased pudding mold.

  2. Cover the mold and steam for 3 hours.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, dark color and moisture to the batter.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together after steaming.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during steaming.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tang.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.

The step that matters

Transfer the mixture to a greased pudding mold. Greasing keeps the batter from sticking to the mold, so the pudding releases cleanly. Leaving room for the batter to rise also matters, since baking soda gas expands during steaming.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, flour, raisin, egg, milk, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, flour, raisin, egg, milk, clove, cinnamon. 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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