Name: Blackberry Pudding or Other Berries
Ingredients: 1½ pints sifted flour; fresh berries (1½ pints); coarse sea salt (to taste); 1 teaspoon baking soda; ½ cup sweet milk; ¾ cup syrup or molasses; butter (for greasing the mold)

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 ↓

Blackberry Pudding or Other Berries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

Mix a little flour with the fresh berries in a bowl.
In another bowl, combine the remaining flour, salt, baking soda, sweet milk, and syrup or molasses to form a smooth batter.
Gently fold in the berries, being careful not to break them.
Grease a mold with butter and pour in the mixture.

Steam and serve

Place the mold in boiling water, ensuring the water does not reach the top of the mold.
Keep the water boiling for at least two hours.
Serve with boiled 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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + syruptop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,540 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Milk + syruptop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,143 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Flour: Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic syrup or molasses to lift and lighten the batter.
Syrup or molasses: Adds sweetness and depth of flavour, and helps the pudding brown and stay moist.
Fresh berries: Add moisture, tartness and colour to the pudding.
Sweet milk: Moistens the batter and helps form a smooth, pourable mixture.

The step that matters

Folding in the berries. Folding gently keeps the berries whole and prevents them from bleeding colour and juice throughout the batter, so the pudding keeps its texture and visible fruit.

“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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Blackberry Pudding or Other Berries