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Dessert

Black Pudding

A sweet pudding made with sour milk, butter, molasses, raisins, spices, and flour, steamed until firm.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Black Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine sour milk, butter, molasses, raisins, baking soda, and spices in a bowl.

  2. Add flour gradually until the batter is stiff.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased mold.

  2. Steam for 1 hour or until fully cooked.

  3. Serve with a sauce of your choice.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to release carbon dioxide, helping the pudding rise.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture with a deep, robust flavor.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Flour
Provides structure so the stiff batter holds its shape while steaming.

The step that matters

Adding flour gradually until the batter is stiff. Too much flour makes the pudding dense and dry, while too little leaves it loose and unable to hold shape. Adding it gradually lets you judge the stiffness and control the final texture.

Swap the raisin

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

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

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