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Dessert

Spice Pudding

A boiled pudding made with molasses, butter, milk, flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

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 ↓

Spice Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Dissolve the baking soda in 1 tablespoon of boiling water and stir it into the molasses.

  2. Add the melted butter and the milk.

  3. Add sifted flour mixed with the baking powder.

  4. Add salt and spices.

  5. Beat until smooth.

Steam the pudding

  1. Grease a pudding mold or tin kettle with a cover.

  2. Fill it three-quarters full.

  3. Cover and set in a pot of boiling water.

  4. Boil for about 4 hours.

  5. Tie in a floured cloth, leaving room to swell.

  6. Boil for about 3 hours.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and dark color, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Baking powder
Releases additional gas during cooking to help the pudding rise.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and richer flavor.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a smooth, pourable batter.

The step that matters

Fill it three-quarters full.. The batter rises as the leavening gases expand during the long steaming. Leaving room in the mold lets it swell without overflowing or becoming dense and compressed.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Clovethe original
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, butter, milk, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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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