Name: Baked Blackberry Pudding
Ingredients: 4 cups all-purpose flour; 2 cups molasses; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 6 cups blackberries; ¼ teaspoon salt

Why it works: Flour and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,429 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Baked Blackberry Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Mix and bake

In a large bowl, mix the flour, molasses, baking soda, blackberries, and salt until well combined.
Transfer the mixture to a covered baking dish.
Bake for about 1.5 hours.

Serve

Serve with flavored hard 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.

Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,429 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

All-purpose flour: Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it bakes.
Molasses: Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness to the pudding.
Baking soda: Reacts with the molasses' acidity to help the pudding rise and lighten.
Blackberries: Add fruit moisture, tartness, and color throughout the pudding.

“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.