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Dessert

Amherst Pudding

A steamed suet and molasses fruit pudding with raisins, currants, citron, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Amherst Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Mix suet, molasses, milk, citron, raisins, currants, and spices in a bowl.

  2. Dissolve baking soda in a few drops of boiling water and add to the mixture.

  3. Sift flour with baking powder and add it to the mixture.

  4. Beat the mixture until very light.

Steam and serve

  1. Grease a mold or tin kettle and fill it no more than two-thirds full with the mixture.

  2. Fasten the cover on firmly.

  3. Prepare a large pot of boiling water and place the mold inside to steam.

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. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  3. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

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

Suet
Adds fat and richness, keeping the pudding moist and tender as it steams.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the pudding.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets the pudding as it steams.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas during steaming to help the pudding rise and become light.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Fill the mold no more than two-thirds full. The batter rises while steaming, and leaving room for expansion prevents overflow and a dense, misshapen pudding. Sealing the cover firmly keeps steam in so the pudding cooks evenly.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, milk, raisin, flour):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Datesfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, raisin, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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