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Dessert

Baked Huckleberry Pudding

A baked pudding made with huckleberries, molasses, spices, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Baked Huckleberry Pudding

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 ↓

Baked Huckleberry Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter a baking dish that can hold the mixture.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine huckleberries, baking soda dissolved in molasses, cloves, allspice, ginger, cinnamon, and flour.

  2. Stir the mixture until well combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into the prepared dish and bake for 2 hours.

  2. Serve with sweet 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Huckleberries
Provide the main fruit flavor and moisture in the pudding.
Baking soda
Dissolved in molasses, it reacts with the acidic molasses to help the pudding rise and lighten.
Molasses
Adds dark sweetness, moisture, and a deep color as the pudding bakes.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it bakes.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in molasses. Baking soda needs to be evenly dispersed so it reacts with the acidic molasses throughout the batter. Uneven dissolving can leave pockets of bitter soda or patchy rising.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, clove, allspice, cinnamon, flour, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, clove, allspice, cinnamon, flour, 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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