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Dessert

Lowell Pudding

A steamed pudding made with raisins, molasses, brown sugar, baking soda, salt, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Lowell Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine raisins, baking soda, molasses, salt, and brown sugar in a bowl.

  2. Add flour gradually until you achieve a stiff batter.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam the mixture for 3 hours.

  2. Serve with any good sauce.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep, sweet flavor to the pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to lighten the batter and help it rise.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the stiff batter together as it steams.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and contributes to the pudding's dark color.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruity sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Adding the flour gradually. Flour should be added slowly so the batter reaches a stiff but even consistency without lumps. Adding it all at once can leave dry pockets or a batter that is too thick to mix well, which affects how evenly the pudding sets while steaming.

“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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