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 ↓
Black Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Combine molasses, chopped suet, raisins, sour milk, baking soda, and cinnamon in a bowl.
Add flour gradually until a stiff batter is achieved.
Steam and serve
Grease a tin mold and pour the batter into it.
Boil the mold for three to four hours.
Serve with lemon sauce.
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.
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Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,390 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,341 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,655 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Molasses
- Adds dark color, moisture and a deep, sweet flavor to the pudding.
- Suet
- Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
- Sour milk
- Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the pudding rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lightens the batter.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that sets the batter into a firm, sliceable pudding.
The step that matters
Boil the mold for three to four hours. The pudding cooks by steam and gentle heat, so the water must keep boiling and the mold must stay submerged. If the water boils down or stops simmering, the pudding cooks unevenly and can turn out dense or underdone.
“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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