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Dessert

Black Pudding

A steamed sweet pudding made with sugar, butter, syrup, sweet milk, eggs, flour, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Black Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the syrup and sweet milk, mixing well.

  3. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

  4. Stir in the flour and baking soda until combined.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased mold.

  2. Steam for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

  3. Serve hot with sauce.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and set into a firm, tender structure as they cook.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together after steaming.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps soften the texture of the batter.
Baking soda
Releases gas that lifts the batter and gives it a lighter crumb.

The step that matters

Steam for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Gentle, steady steam cooks the eggs and flour evenly through the batter. Uneven heat or dropping steam can leave the centre underset and dense, so the pudding needs a consistent, continuous steam for the full time.

“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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