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Dessert

Hingham Pudding

A steamed pudding made with butter, molasses, sugar, baking soda, water, and flour, served with a butter, sugar, flour dip.

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 ↓

Hingham Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine melted butter, molasses, sugar, baking soda, and hot water in a bowl.

  2. Gradually add flour and mix until smooth.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold and steam for 3 hours.

Make the dip

  1. Cream together ½ cup butter, 1 cup sugar, and 1 tablespoon flour for the dip.

  2. Pour boiling water over the dip mixture.

  3. Cook the dip until thickened.

  4. Flavor the dip after removing from heat.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Flour
Forms the structure of the pudding as it sets during steaming.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the pudding and the dip.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep, sweet flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acid to lighten the pudding and help it rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps give the dip its body.

The step that matters

Cook the dip until thickened. Flour thickens only when heated long enough to swell its starch granules. Stopping too early leaves the dip thin and floury-tasting, so it must cook until it visibly thickens.

“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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