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Dessert

French Christmas Pudding

A steamed pudding made with milk, butter, flour, sugar, eggs, apples, Kirschwasser, nuts, dried fruit, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

French Christmas Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Boil the milk with the butter in a clean saucepan.

  2. Gradually stir in the flour until a smooth paste forms.

  3. Allow the mixture to cool, then add the sugar, egg yolks, and whisked egg whites.

Add the fruit and steam

  1. Peel, core, slice, and chop the apples, then pour the Kirschwasser over them.

  2. Add the apples, ground almonds or walnuts, Sultanas, raisins, and cinnamon to the mixture. Gently mix all ingredients together.

  3. Steam in buttered molds for about 2 hours.

  4. Serve with vanilla 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.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + raisintop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  3. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the pudding while setting.
Egg whites
Whisked for air, giving the pudding a lighter, more open texture.
Flour
Forms the paste that gives the pudding its body and structure.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Apples
Add moisture and tartness that balance the sweet dried fruit.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.

The step that matters

Gently mix all ingredients together. Folding rather than beating keeps the whisked egg whites airy, so the steamed pudding stays light instead of dense.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, flour, sugar, egg, almond, raisin):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, flour, sugar, egg, almond, raisin. 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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