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Dessert

Washington Pudding

A baked custard pudding made with eggs, sugar, bread crumbs, milk, butter, raisins, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Washington 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 the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

Make the pudding

  1. In a bowl, mix the sugar, bread crumbs soaked in milk, butter, raisins, and wine.

  2. Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered baking dish.

Bake and brown

  1. Bake until set, then spread the beaten egg whites on top and brown under the broiler.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites add lift and a light, airy texture to the pudding.
Bread crumbs
Soak up the milk and give the pudding body and a soft, tender crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown under the broiler.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Brown the egg white topping under the broiler. Egg whites brown quickly under high heat and can scorch or dry out if left unattended. Watch closely so the topping turns golden rather than burnt.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, bread, milk, butter, wine):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, bread, milk, butter, wine. 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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