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Dessert

Amherst Pudding

A steamed pudding made with suet, molasses, milk, fruit, and spices, baked in a water bath.

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

Make the batter

  1. Mix suet, molasses, milk, citron, raisins, currants, and spices together.

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

  3. Sift flour with baking powder and add to the mixture, beating 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 and place the mold in a large pot of boiling water.

  3. Boil without interruption for 4½ to 5 hours.

  4. Alternatively, tie the mixture in a well-floured bag, leaving room to swell, and boil for about 4 hours.

  5. Serve with Hard Sauce or molasses.

  6. Leftovers can be sliced, fried in hot butter, and served with molasses.

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

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Suet
Adds richness and a moist, tender crumb as it melts during boiling.
Molasses
Provides sweetness, dark colour and moisture, and reacts with the soda to help it rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses' acidity to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Baking powder
Releases gas during steaming, helping the pudding rise and become light.
Milk
Moistens the batter so the flour hydrates and the texture stays soft.

The step that matters

Keep the mold full of boiling water for the whole steaming time. Boiling water surrounds the mold and transfers steady heat, so the pudding cooks through evenly. If the water stops boiling, the pudding cooks unevenly and may turn heavy or doughy.

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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