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Dessert

Guernsey Pudding

A baked apple and rice pudding with spices, wine, candied peel, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Guernsey Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the apple mixture

  1. Combine apples, sugar, lemon rind, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, and white wine in a saucepan.

  2. Boil quickly, stirring until it becomes a rich marmalade.

  3. Remove the spices and lemon peel.

  4. Transfer the apples to a basin to cool.

Make the rice

  1. Wash the rice.

  2. Boil the rice in milk for 25 minutes.

  3. Drain the rice and sweeten with sifted sugar.

Assemble and bake

  1. Mix the cooled apple mixture, sweetened rice, and candied peel.

  2. Beat the egg whites until frothy.

  3. Fold the egg whites into the mixture.

  4. Beat the mixture for 10 minutes.

  5. Prepare a puff pastry and line a plain mold with it.

  6. Pour the mixture into the mold.

  7. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

  8. Carefully turn out the pudding.

  9. Serve.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Cinnamon + ricetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Cook down into a thick marmalade that gives the pudding its body and fruity sweetness.
Eggs
Whipped whites lighten the mixture and help it rise and set during baking.
Rice
Cooked in milk until soft, it thickens the filling and gives it a creamy, tender texture.
Milk
Cooks with the rice, adding moisture and richness to the filling.
Candied peel
Adds chewy pockets of citrus sweetness and aroma throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites hold air only while whipped; folding gently keeps that air in the mixture, so beating them hard after adding them would knock out the lift the pudding needs to rise and set evenly in the oven.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, white wine, rice):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, white wine, rice. 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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