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Dessert

Spice Pudding

A steamed or baked pudding made with sour milk, molasses, suet or butter, spices, and optional fruit, served with a brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Spice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a bowl, combine sour milk, molasses, baking soda, chopped suet or butter, salt, and spice or ginger. Mix well and add fruit if desired.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  3. Steam or bake until set.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, combine milk, butter, sugar, flour, and molasses in a saucepan.

  2. Stir together and boil for 10 minutes, then flavor to taste.

Serve

  1. Serve the pudding warm with the brown 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Milk + gingertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,519 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Butter + gingertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda and its liquid keeps the pudding moist.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to release gas that lifts and lightens the pudding.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and a rich flavor to the pudding.
Suet or butter
Adds fat that makes the pudding tender and rich.

The step that matters

Steam or bake until set. The pudding must be cooked long enough for the egg-free batter's starches and structure to firm up. Underdone pudding stays wet and collapses when turned out, while gentle, moist heat keeps it tender rather than dry.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, molasses, butter. 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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