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Dessert

Amherst Pudding

A steamed or boiled pudding made with sour milk, flour, suet, molasses, salt, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Amherst Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine sour milk, flour, chopped suet, molasses, salt, and baking soda, and mix until well combined.

Cook

  1. Transfer the mixture to a pudding mold.

  2. Boil for 4 hours or steam for a shorter time until cooked through.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Sour milk
Reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter and adds a slight tang.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender during long cooking.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and a rich, deep flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release gas that lightens the batter.

The step that matters

Boil for 4 hours or steam until cooked through. Long, steady heat is needed for the starch to set and the batter to cook through in the center. Keeping the water at a gentle, continuous simmer, and topping it up as it evaporates, prevents the pudding from drying out or becoming dense and underdone.

“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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