Skip to main content
Dessert

Pudding

A sweet pudding made from breadfruit, plantains, taro, palm or pandanus nuts, and coconut juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Taro and coconut share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

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. Rasp, scrape, or beat the breadfruit, ripe plantains, taro, and palm or pandanus nuts until fine.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a large tray or wooden vessel, combine the ingredients.

  2. Pour the expressed coconut juice over the mixture.

  3. Bake in the oven until cooked through.

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. Taro + coconuttop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together15 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Nuts + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together142 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Bread + nutstop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together174 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Bread + coconuttop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together112 recipes

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

  5. Taro + nutstop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1 recipe

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Breadfruit (in the method)
Provides the starchy bulk that gives the pudding its body.
Ripe plantains
Add natural sweetness and a soft, moist texture as they cook.
Taro
Adds starch that thickens the mixture and helps it set when baked.
Palm or pandanus nuts
Add richness and fat, contributing to a tender, creamy texture.
Coconut juice
Supplies liquid that hydrates the starches so the pudding cooks through.

Swap the taro

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, nuts, coconut):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Tarothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, nuts, coconut. 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.

You might also like

Bread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipesBrown Bread PuddingBrown Bread Pudding47 recipes