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Dessert

Whortleberry Pudding

A steamed pudding made with molasses, whortleberries, water, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 ↓

Whortleberry Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Pour boiling water over baking soda in a bowl and mix well.

  2. Add molasses, whortleberries, cinnamon, and cloves to the mixture.

  3. Stir in enough flour to achieve a stiff batter, similar to pound cake.

Cook

  1. Steam or boil the pudding for three 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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Molasses + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Clove + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,671 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 dark sweetness and moisture, and gives the pudding its characteristic flavor.
Whortleberries
Provide fruit flavor and moisture throughout the pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that helps the pudding rise.
Flour
Provides structure so the batter sets into a stiff, cake-like pudding.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour. Flour must be added until the batter is stiff, like pound cake. Too little flour leaves a loose batter that cannot hold its shape, while too much makes the pudding dense and dry.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, cinnamon, 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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