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Dessert

Blueberry Pudding

A steamed blueberry pudding made with milk, molasses, egg, baking soda, flour, and blueberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Blueberry Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine milk, molasses, cream of tartar, egg, and baking soda.

  2. Add enough flour to create a stiff batter.

  3. Gently fold in the blueberries.

Steam and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a basin and steam until cooked through.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Milk
Hydrates the flour and keeps the batter moist during steaming.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and a dark, rich flavor.
Cream of tartar
Provides acid that reacts with baking soda to help the pudding rise.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps set its structure as it cooks.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the cream of tartar to release gas that lifts the pudding.
Flour
Builds the structure of the stiff batter once hydrated.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the blueberries. Stirring vigorously once the flour is in develops gluten, which makes the pudding tough and dense. Folding gently keeps the batter light and stops the blueberries from breaking up and bleeding color.

“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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