Skip to main content
Dessert

Hard Times Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, currants, raisins, molasses, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Hard Times Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Sift together the flour, cream of tartar, salt, and mixed spice.

  2. Add the currants and raisins, mixing well.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the baking soda with the molasses, melted butter, and cold water.

  4. Add this mixture to the dry ingredients and beat until smooth.

Steam

  1. Steam the batter for 2 hours.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 of the pudding as the batter sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar and molasses to lighten the pudding.
Cream of tartar
Provides acidity that activates the baking soda for rising.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour, and moisture to the pudding.
Currants
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruit sweetness.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruit sweetness.

The step that matters

Beat the batter until smooth. Beating after the liquid is added develops gluten in the flour and evens the batter so the currants and raisins are evenly distributed. Lumps left in the batter can leave pockets of dry flour and uneven texture after steaming.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, cream, raisin, butter, molasses):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, cream, raisin, butter, molasses. 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.

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesCurrant Ice CreamCurrant Ice Cream32 recipes