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Dessert

March Pudding

A baked apple and molasses pudding with a butter‑sugar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

March Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Wash and soak the dried apples overnight.

  2. Cut the soaked apples finely and mix with the soaking water.

  3. Add molasses, cinnamon, and cloves to the apple mixture.

  4. Stir the baking soda into the apple and molasses mixture.

Make the batter and bake

  1. In a separate bowl, mix the egg, butter, and flour together.

  2. Combine the two mixtures and bake immediately.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with a sauce made by beating together ½ cup butter and 1 cup sugar, flavored with nutmeg, lemon, or vanilla.

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. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried apples
Provide the fruit body and moisture once softened by soaking.
Molasses
Adds dark sweetness and a deep flavor, and keeps the pudding moist.
Flour
Gives the pudding its structure as it sets during baking.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps it set into a firm crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lightens the pudding.

The step that matters

Bake immediately after combining. Baking soda starts releasing gas as soon as it meets the acidic molasses mixture. If the batter waits, much of that lift is lost before it reaches the oven, leaving a denser pudding.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, flour, butter, egg, cinnamon, clove, sauce. 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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