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Dessert

Spice Pudding

A boiled pudding made with molasses, butter, milk, flour, spices, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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, then the milk and sifted flour mixed with the baking powder.

  3. Add salt, spices, and wine. Beat until smooth.

Steam the pudding

  1. Grease a pudding mold or tin kettle with a cover and fill it halfway.

  2. Cover and set in a pot of boiling water. Boil for about 4 hours without interruption.

  3. Alternatively, tie in a floured cloth, leaving room to swell, and boil for about 3 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with lemon 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. 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
Provides sweetness, moisture, and the dark color and deep flavor of the pudding.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist crumb.
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 gas during cooking to help the pudding rise and swell.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a smooth, pourable batter.

The step that matters

Fill the mold only halfway. The batter swells as it steams, so a full mold can overflow or cook unevenly. Keep the water at a steady boil for the full time so the pudding cooks through evenly.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, butter, milk, wine, 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, wine, 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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