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Dessert

Italian Steamed Pudding

A steamed pudding made with bread crumbs, milk, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Italian Steamed Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine bread crumbs and boiling milk in a bowl.

  2. Stir in sugar, egg yolks, vanilla, and raisins.

  3. Whip egg whites until stiff and fold into the mixture.

  4. Pour into a greased pudding mold.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam until it rises like a soufflé.

  2. Serve immediately with sabayon.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Vanilla + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together782 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Egg whites
Whipped until stiff, they trap air and make the pudding light and rise like a soufflé.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the custard-like batter as it sets.
Bread crumbs
Soak up the hot milk and form the body of the pudding.
Milk
Softens the bread crumbs and adds moisture and a tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps stabilize the whipped egg whites.
Raisins
Add pockets of concentrated sweetness and chew throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Overmixing or deflating the whites removes the air that makes the pudding rise. Fold gently, just until no white streaks remain, so the batter stays light for steaming.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

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