Name: Ginger Bread Pudding
Ingredients: 1 cup molasses; 1 cup currants; 1 cup sour milk; 2 tablespoons ginger; 2 tablespoons cinnamon; 2 tablespoons allspice; 1 cup raisins; 1 teaspoon cloves; 2 cups flour

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 ↓

Ginger Bread Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

Combine molasses, currants, sour milk, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, raisins, cloves, and flour in a bowl, and mix until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a pudding mold.

Steam and serve

Steam for 2 hours.
Serve with hard 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.

Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,536 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,380 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,038 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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.
Flour: Provides the starch and structure that hold the pudding together as it steams.
Sour milk: Adds moisture and acidity that help give the pudding a tender crumb.
Raisins: Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.
Currants: Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, milk, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, raisin, clove):

Orangefits better
Figfits better
Vanillafits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, raisin, clove. 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.