Skip to main content
Main

Black Pudding

A steamed blood sausage made with molasses, flour, raisins, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Black Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the warm water and molasses.

  2. Add the baking soda and stir until dissolved.

  3. Mix in the salt and flour, then add the beaten egg, stirring vigorously after each addition.

  4. Stone and coarsely chop the raisins, then fold them into the mixture.

Steam and serve

  1. Butter a pudding mold or basin, pour in the mixture, and place it in a steamer over boiling water.

  2. Steam for 2 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.

  1. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Raisin + eggtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,556 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Molasses
Provides dark color, moisture, and a rich, slightly bitter sweetness.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps it set firm during steaming.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda to the molasses mixture. Baking soda must be fully dissolved so it reacts evenly with the acidic molasses. Uneven dissolving leaves dense pockets or bitter spots and uneven rising.

“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.

More black pudding recipes

Irish 6French 3 See all 71 →

You might also like

Molasses SauceMolasses Sauce32 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes