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Dessert

Molasses Pudding

A sweet baked pudding made with eggs, sugar, butter, milk, molasses, flour, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Molasses Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs with sugar, butter, milk, and ½ cup of molasses.

  2. Mix in the flour until well combined.

  3. In a separate bowl, stir the baking soda into ½ cup of molasses until it rises.

  4. Add the molasses mixture to the batter just before baking.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until set and serve hot with butter.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Provide structure and help the pudding set as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to a tender texture.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness to the pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses to produce gas that helps the pudding rise.

The step that matters

Add the molasses mixture to the batter just before baking. Baking soda starts reacting as soon as it meets the acidic molasses, releasing gas that lifts the batter. Waiting until just before baking keeps that lift for the oven rather than losing it while the batter sits.

“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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