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Dessert

Whortleberry Pudding

A sweet pudding made with molasses, milk, flour, and whortleberries, boiled for four hours and served with sweet sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Whortleberry Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine molasses, milk, salt, and enough flour to create a thick batter.

  2. Stir in whortleberries until well mixed.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a pot and boil for four 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.

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 + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Molasses + saucetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together280 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + milktop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 thick batter that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, deep color and moisture to the batter.
Milk
Adds moisture and softens the flour into a smooth batter.
Whortleberries
Add fruit flavor and tartness, and moisture, throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Keeping the batter thick. Flour must be added until the batter is thick, because too thin a batter gives a loose, soggy pudding that does not set firmly during the long boil.

“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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