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Dessert

Baked Fruit Pudding

A baked pudding made from stale bread, milk, eggs, sugar, molasses, suet, raisins, spices, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Baked Fruit Pudding

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Baked Fruit Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the bread

  1. Break the stale bread into small pieces and dry in a 300°F (150°C) oven until not too brown.

  2. Pour the milk over the dry bread crumbs and soak for 1 hour, then beat well.

Mix and bake

  1. Add the beaten eggs, sugar, molasses, chopped suet, raisins, cinnamon, cloves, mace, nutmeg, and salt. Mix thoroughly.

  2. Butter a large pudding dish and pour the mixture into the dish.

  3. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 4 hours, covering to prevent browning.

  4. Serve with wine sauce.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

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

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Stale bread
Absorbs the milk and eggs, forming the soft body of the pudding.
Milk
Moistens the bread and, with the eggs, sets into a custard-like texture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set as it bakes.
Suet
Adds fat that makes the pudding rich and tender.
Raisins
Provide sweetness and chewy fruit pieces throughout the pudding.
Molasses
Adds dark sweetness and a deep, rich flavor.

The step that matters

Covering the pudding while it bakes. A long bake at moderate heat can brown the top too far before the centre sets. Covering the dish slows surface browning, letting the interior cook through gently.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Cardamomfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, egg, sugar, molasses, raisin, cinnamon. 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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