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Dessert

Blackberry Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, blackberries, sweet milk, molasses, sugar, butter, and a vanilla-flavored sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Blackberry Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Sprinkle a little flour over the blackberries.

  2. Dissolve baking soda in the sweet milk, then nearly fill the cup with molasses.

  3. Stir in flour until you have a smooth batter, then gently fold in the blackberries.

  4. Steam the mixture until done.

Make the sauce

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

  2. Heat water in a saucepan, thicken slightly with flour, then rapidly stir in the creamed butter and sugar.

  3. Flavor the sauce with vanilla or your preferred flavoring.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Builds the structure of the batter so the pudding holds together when steamed.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses and milk to lighten the batter and help it rise.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce, giving it a smooth, silky body.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and helps it become smooth when creamed with butter.
Blackberries
Provide fruit flavor, tartness and moisture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Rapidly stir the creamed butter and sugar into the hot thickened water. Adding the butter and sugar to hot liquid quickly lets them blend evenly; if stirred slowly, the fat can separate and leave the sauce greasy or grainy.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Raisinfits about as well
  2. Vanillathe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Peachfits less well

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