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Dessert

Nut Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, butter, raisins, nuts, sweet milk, molasses, and a butter‑sugar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Nut Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

  2. Cream together butter, then add chopped raisins, chopped nuts, sweet milk, and molasses.

  3. Combine the wet and dry ingredients until well mixed.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold and steam for 3 hours.

  2. For the sauce, beat together ½ cup butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, fruit juice, and boiling water.

  3. Just before serving, add water and beaten egg white to the sauce until it foams.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses to lighten the batter and help it rise.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the pudding and forms the base of the sauce.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness with a slight acidity.
Egg white
Whipped into the sauce to trap air, giving it a light, foamy texture.

The step that matters

Adding the egg white to the sauce. The sauce should be added just before serving so the foam stays light. Whipped egg white trapped air collapses over time, so waiting makes the sauce flat.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, butter, raisin, milk, molasses):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, butter, raisin, milk, molasses. 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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