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Dessert

Fruit Pudding

A baked pudding made with sugar, butter, molasses, eggs, milk, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, raisins, currants, and a butter-sugar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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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 ↓

Fruit 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the molasses, eggs, and milk, mixing well.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.

  6. Fold in the raisins and currants.

Bake and make the sauce

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking dish and bake for about 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. For the sauce, mix the confectioners' sugar with the softened butter and flavoring, adding a little milk to reach desired consistency.

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air, giving the batter a light, tender crumb and richness.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Flour
Forms the structure of the cake as the batter bakes and sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the molasses and cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that activates the baking soda and stabilises the rise.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and deep sweetness with a mild acidity.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding flour in stages and stirring only until combined keeps gluten development limited, so the pudding stays tender rather than tough and dense.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Strawberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, molasses, egg, milk, flour, cream. 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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