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Dessert

Blackberry or Whortleberry Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, molasses, milk, spices, and huckleberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Blackberry or Whortleberry Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat a pot of water to boiling.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix flour, molasses, milk, salt, cloves, cinnamon, and baking soda dissolved in a little milk.

  2. Gently fold in the floured huckleberries.

  3. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered mold.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil in the pot for 2 hours.

  2. Serve with brandy 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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure of the pudding as it cooks.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and a moist, dense texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses to lighten the batter and help it rise.
Huckleberries
Add fruit flavor and moisture throughout the pudding.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and helps form a smooth, cohesive batter.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the floured huckleberries. Flouring the berries helps keep them suspended instead of sinking to the bottom. Folding gently avoids overworking the batter, which would make the pudding tough and crumble the berries.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

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