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Dessert

Black Pudding

A sweet pudding made with brown sugar, black molasses, raisins, currants, butter, flour, buttermilk, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Black Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the brown sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the black molasses, buttermilk, raisins, and currants; mix well.

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

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

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air, giving the cake a light, tender crumb and rich flavor.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the batter as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk and molasses to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Black molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and deep, slightly bitter sweetness.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity that activates the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture, and caramel notes while helping the batter brown.

The step that matters

Stirring in the dry ingredients. Overmixing once the flour is added develops gluten, which toughens the cake. Stir only until just combined, leaving a few streaks of flour, so the crumb stays tender.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Currantthe original

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