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Dessert

Persimmon Pudding

A baked pudding made with persimmon pulp, eggs, sugar, butter, baking powder, baking soda, sour milk, water, cinnamon, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Persimmon and cinnamon share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 47 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Persimmon 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

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

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs and mix in the sugar.

  2. Add the persimmon pulp and melted butter, stirring well.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine baking powder, baking soda, sour milk, and water. Mix the wet ingredients into the persimmon mixture.

  4. Add cinnamon and enough flour to create a thin batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking dish. Bake for 1 hour or until set.

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. Persimmon + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together47 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

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

  3. Persimmon + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together63 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 help it set into a tender custard-like structure when baked.
Persimmon pulp
Provides the main fruit flavor and moisture to the pudding.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the pudding rises and becomes lighter.
Sour milk
Reacts with baking soda to add lift and a slight tang that balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown slightly as it bakes.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Baking long enough lets the egg proteins coagulate so the pudding firms up. Pulling it too early leaves a wet, loose center, while baking too long can make it dry.

Swap the persimmon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, butter, milk, cinnamon, flour):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Persimmonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, milk, cinnamon, flour. 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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