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Thanksgiving Pudding

A steamed or baked pudding made with crackers, milk, molasses, sugar, raisins, spices, eggs, butter, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Thanksgiving Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the crackers in milk overnight.

  2. In a large bowl, combine the soaked crackers, molasses, milk, sugar, raisins, nutmeg, beaten eggs, cinnamon, butter, clove, and salt. Mix well until all ingredients are combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a pudding mold.

  2. Steam or bake until set, about 1.5 to 2 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.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Crackers
Soaked in milk, they soften and bind the pudding into a moist, sliceable body.
Eggs
Set when heated, giving the pudding its firm structure.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, dark color and a rich caramel-like flavor.
Milk
Provides moisture and softens the crackers while adding richness.

The step that matters

Steaming or baking until set. Eggs set as they heat, so underbaking leaves the pudding loose and wet, while overcooking can make it dry and rubbery. Check that the center is firm before removing it.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Blueberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, molasses, sugar, nutmeg, egg, cinnamon, butter. 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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