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Dessert

Amherst Pudding

A steamed pudding made with molasses, sweet milk, suet, raisins, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Amherst Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine molasses, sweet milk, chopped suet, and raisins.

  2. Add baking soda, cloves, cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg, and mix well.

  3. Make the mixture stiff and pour it into a greased pudding mold.

Steam and serve

  1. Cover the mold and steam for 3 hours.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Provides dark sweetness, moisture and a rich, slightly acidic flavour.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it steams.
Raisins
Add pockets of chewy sweetness throughout the pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to lighten the pudding as it cooks.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and helps bind the batter into a cohesive mixture.

The step that matters

Make the mixture stiff. The batter must be thick enough to hold its shape in the mold. A thin batter can leak out or steam unevenly, and the baking soda's rising action depends on the batter staying well mixed and held in place.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, milk, clove, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg):

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Orangefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, clove, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg. 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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