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Dessert

Honeycomb Pudding

A baked pudding made with sugar, flour, molasses, butter, milk, baking soda, eggs, topped with a sauce of butter, brandy, brown sugar, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Honeycomb Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pudding

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

  2. In a bowl, beat together the sugar, flour, molasses, melted butter, warm milk, and baking soda.

  3. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

  4. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and cover it for the first 30 minutes of baking.

Bake and make the sauce

  1. Bake for 1.5 hours.

  2. For the sauce, combine the butter, brandy, brown sugar, and cream in a bowl.

  3. Place the bowl in a dish of boiling water and beat until light and creamy before serving.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and lift as the pudding sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acid to produce gas that leavens the pudding.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness.
Flour
Provides the starch and gluten that give the pudding its body.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the pudding and fat to the sauce.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the sauce and helps it turn smooth and caramel-like.

The step that matters

Beating the sauce until light and creamy. Beating over hot water warms the butter and sugar so they emulsify into a smooth, airy sauce. If the water is not hot enough or the beating is cut short, the sauce stays grainy and dense.

“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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