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Dessert

Jam Pudding

A baked pudding made with molasses, butter, blackberry jam, raisins, spices, flour, milk, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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 ↓

Jam Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix molasses, butter, and blackberry jam until well combined.

  2. Add raisins, nutmeg, cinnamon, baking powder, flour, and milk to the mixture and stir until all ingredients are fully incorporated.

  3. Pour batter into a greased baking dish.

Bake

  1. Bake for 3 hours or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the main structure of the pudding as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, giving the pudding a tender crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the pudding rises and becomes lighter.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep sweetness with a slight bitterness.
Blackberry jam
Adds fruit sweetness, moisture, and a bright flavor throughout the batter.

The step that matters

Stir until all ingredients are fully incorporated. Thorough mixing spreads the leavening and fat evenly through the batter, so the pudding rises uniformly and has a consistent texture rather than dense or uneven pockets.

Swap the blackberry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Blackberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, butter, raisin, nutmeg, cinnamon, flour, milk. 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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