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Dessert

English Walnut Pudding

A steamed pudding made with butter, cinnamon, egg, cloves, baking soda, water, walnuts, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

English Walnut Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream the butter and mix in the cinnamon, egg, cloves, and baking soda dissolved in boiling water.

  2. Stir in the walnuts and raisins.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a pudding mold and steam for 2½ hours.

  2. Serve with any sauce of your choice.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Cinnamon + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Clove + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Clove + raisintop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and a tender crumb by carrying fat through the batter.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps give the pudding its set structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to help it rise and lighten during steaming.
Raisins
Add sweetness and moisture, softening as the pudding steams.
Walnuts
Add crunch and a nutty flavor that contrasts with the soft pudding.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in boiling water. Baking soda needs moisture and heat to react and leaven the batter. Dissolving it fully in boiling water spreads it evenly, so the pudding rises uniformly rather than developing dense or soapy pockets.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, cinnamon, egg, clove, raisin):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Walnutthe original
  4. Pistachiofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cinnamon, egg, clove, raisin. 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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