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Dessert

Thanksgiving Pudding

A steamed pudding made with butter, molasses, milk, eggs, raisins, currants, citron, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Thanksgiving Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and molasses.

  2. Add the milk and baking soda, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the beaten eggs, raisins, currants, citron, and salt.

  4. Gradually add flour until the mixture is as stiff as pound cake batter.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for 6 hours.

  3. Serve with your choice of 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. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, 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 tenderness, and carries flavor through the batter.
Molasses
Provides sweetness, dark color, and a deep, robust flavor.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during steaming.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acidity to lighten the batter and aid rising.
Flour
Builds the firm structure that holds the pudding together.
Raisins
Add moisture, chew, and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the mixture is as stiff as pound cake batter. Too little flour leaves the pudding loose and collapsing, while too much makes it dense and dry. Adding it gradually lets you stop at the right stiffness.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, molasses, milk, egg, raisin, 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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