Well, I guess they had to "leaven the pudding", so to speak.

Need a rope, Faldage? So to speak...meaning the phrase was intentional.

Inventing your own nits to pick now? Things must be slow on the nit-farm!

"The proof is in the pudding" has nothing remotely to do with "leaven the pudding", semantically...maybe "leaven the loaf". The phrase you imply is somehow biblically required here never even entered my mind. Double "huh"? Stabbing at straws, now, aren't we? (yeah, I know...the common phrase is "grasping" at straws). But you're stabbing at straws in the dark.