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Dessert

Scotch Pudding

A baked barley pudding with sugar, butter, lemon, whisky, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Scotch 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.

Make the batter

  1. In a stewpan, combine the cooked barley and sifted sugar.

  2. Add the milk, fresh butter, salt, lemon rind, and whisky.

  3. Stir the mixture over heat until it boils, then smooth the batter.

Bake

  1. Work in the egg yolks, then gently fold in the whisked egg whites.

  2. Pour the batter into a slightly buttered pie dish.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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

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

  2. Barley + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together484 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Barley + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + whiskytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together335 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich and thicken the batter, while whisked whites lighten it and help it set.
Barley
Forms the body of the pudding, giving it a substantial, starchy texture.
Milk
Provides liquid that cooks with the barley and eggs into a soft, custard-like set.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and contributes to browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whisked whites hold air that lightens the batter. Stirring them in vigorously knocks out that air, so the pudding rises less and turns denser.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, sugar, milk, butter, whisky, egg. 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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