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Dessert

Troy Pudding

A steamed pudding made with butter, sugar, molasses, sour milk, raisins or figs, flour, baking soda, cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Troy Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

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

  2. Stir in the sour milk and chopped raisins or figs, and mix well.

  3. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam the pudding for 3 hours.

  3. Serve hot with a rich 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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the pudding a tender crumb.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda so the pudding rises.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Raisins or figs
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Stir the dry ingredients in gradually, just until combined. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form. Overmixing makes the pudding tough and dense, so stop stirring as soon as no dry flour streaks remain.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

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

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