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Dessert

Potato-Crust for Boiled Fruit Puddings

A boiled fruit pudding encased in a potato and flour crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Potato-Crust for Boiled Fruit Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the crust

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender, then mash them finely.

  2. Combine mashed potatoes and sifted flour in a bowl, mixing well with a chopping knife.

  3. Chop in butter and salt until the mixture is light and free from clogs.

  4. Add very cold water gradually to form a paste, mixing with the chopping knife.

  5. Gather dough into a round heap on a floured surface.

  6. Roll dough into a round shape, about 1 inch thick in the center and thinner at the edges.

Wrap the pudding

  1. Prepare a thick pudding cloth by scalding and wringing it out.

  2. Dredge the cloth with flour.

  3. Place rolled crust in the center of the cloth.

  4. Add fruit filling in the middle.

  5. Gather edges of crust over fruit.

  6. Press gently to secure filling.

  7. Wrap cloth around pudding.

  8. Tie tightly with string, leaving space for pudding to rise.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil pudding in water, ensuring it does not take in water during cooking.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  3. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Potatoes
Mashed into the dough, they add moisture and a tender, soft texture to the crust.
Flour
Forms the structure of the dough that holds the crust together while boiling.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour, it adds richness and tenderness to the crust.

The step that matters

Tying the pudding cloth. If the cloth is not tied tightly, or the pudding is not sealed well, water can enter during boiling and make the crust soggy. Leaving room in the cloth lets the pudding expand as it cooks.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter. 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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