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Dessert

Damson Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with milk, eggs, flour, ginger, salt, and damsons or prunes, boiled in a cloth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Damson Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat a few spoonfuls of milk with the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Gradually mix in the flour, salt, and ginger.

  3. Add the remaining milk and the damsons or prunes, mixing well.

Cook and serve

  1. Tie the mixture in a cloth and boil for 1 hour.

  2. Serve with a good pudding 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 + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 mixture and set into a firm, sliceable pudding as they cook.
Flour
Provides structure, thickening the batter so it holds together when boiled.
Milk
Adds moisture and a soft, tender texture to the set pudding.
Damsons or prunes
Supply fruit flavour and a tart-sweet note, with moisture running through the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil for the full hour. The egg and flour mixture sets slowly under steady heat. If the water stops boiling or cools, the pudding can turn out heavy, wet, or unevenly set.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, flour. 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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