Skip to main content
Baking

March Pudding

A baked pudding made with dried apples, molasses, flour, butter, cloves, baking soda, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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

  1. Wash and soak the dried apples overnight.

  2. Cut the apples finely and mix with the other ingredients.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake immediately.

  2. Serve hot with a sauce made from 1/2 cup butter and 1 cup sugar, beaten smooth and flavored.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and dark color, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that helps the pudding rise.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the crumb tender and rich.
Dried apples
Contribute moisture and fruity flavor as they soften during soaking and baking.

The step that matters

Bake immediately. Baking soda begins reacting as soon as it meets the acidic molasses in the batter. Waiting before baking lets much of the gas escape, so the pudding may rise less and turn out denser.

Swap the apple

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

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

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

You might also like

Delicate CakeDelicate Cake246 recipesBoiled FrostingBoiled Frosting69 recipesCitron CakeCitron Cake68 recipesScotch CakeScotch Cake63 recipes