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Dessert

Huckleberry Pudding

A baked pudding made with butter, molasses, sugar, eggs, boiling water, baking soda, spices, huckleberries, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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 ↓

Huckleberry Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream butter, molasses, and sugar together.

  3. Beat in eggs one at a time.

  4. Stir in boiling water and baking soda.

  5. Add cinnamon and nutmeg to taste.

  6. Fold in huckleberries and enough flour to achieve a stiff batter.

Bake

  1. Pour mixture into greased baking dish and bake until set.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the pudding a tender, moist crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and set the pudding as they cook.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acid to help the pudding rise and lighten.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, deep flavour and moisture, and gives the pudding its dark colour.
Huckleberries
Provide fruit flavour and juiciness throughout the pudding.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together as it bakes.

The step that matters

Stir in the baking soda after the boiling water. Baking soda reacts with the acid in molasses to release gas, so it needs to be mixed in promptly to help the pudding rise. Its effect fades as the batter sits, so it should go into the batter just before baking.

“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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