Skip to main content
Dessert

Brown Pudding

A steamed pudding made with molasses, sugar, sour milk, butter, flour, eggs, raisins, nutmeg, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Brown Pudding

Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Brown Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Add the beaten eggs, then mix in the molasses and grated nutmeg.

  3. Stir in the flour and sour milk.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in a little warm water and add it to the mixture.

Steam

  1. Steam the pudding for three 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the pudding sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas, helping the pudding rise and lighten.
Butter
Creamed with the sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, moisture, and a dark color with a robust flavor.
Flour
Forms the main structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Sour milk
Acidifies the batter so the baking soda can react and add lift.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in a little warm water and add it to the mixture.. Baking soda needs an acid to react and release gas. Dissolving it evenly before adding it spreads the reaction through the batter, so the pudding rises uniformly rather than in pockets.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

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

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesMolasses Sponge CakeMolasses Sponge Cake9 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipes