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Dessert

Damson Pudding

A baked pudding made with eggs, milk, flour, brown sugar, and damsons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Damson Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs until well combined.

  2. Add the milk, flour, and brown sugar, and mix until smooth.

  3. Stir in the pitted damsons.

Cook the pudding

  1. Grease a basin with butter and pour in the batter.

  2. Boil the basin in water for 1.5 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the batter as they cook, giving the pudding structure and a tender, custard-like crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides starch and gluten that give the pudding its body and hold its shape.
Milk
Adds liquid that moistens the batter and helps it cook into a soft, tender texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and molasses flavour, and helps keep the pudding moist.
Damsons
Add tart fruit flavour and juices that moisten the pudding as it cooks.

The step that matters

Boil the basin in water for 1.5 hours. The surrounding water heats the batter gently and evenly, so the eggs set into a moist, tender pudding rather than drying out or cooking unevenly at the edges.

“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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