Name: Berry Pudding
Ingredients: 1 pint molasses; 1 teaspoon baking soda; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon ground cloves; 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon; flour (to make a stiff batter); 1 quart berries (huckleberries preferred)

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 ↓

Berry Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

In a bowl, mix molasses and baking soda until light.
Add salt, cloves, cinnamon, and enough flour to form a stiff batter.
Gently fold in the berries.

Steam

Steam the mixture for 3 hours.

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.

Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,928 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Molasses + clovetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,483 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Clove + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,671 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses: Provides the dark body, moisture and deep sweetness of the pudding.
Baking soda: Reacts with the molasses's acidity to lighten the batter and help it rise.
Flour: Gives the batter its stiff structure so it holds together during steaming.
Berries: Add fruity moisture, tartness and color to the pudding.