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Dessert

A Muffin Pudding

A muffin pudding is a baked dessert made from torn muffins, raisins, butter, milk, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

A Muffin 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 the mold

  1. Prepare a mold by greasing it with butter and adding some raisins.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the torn muffins and additional raisins in the mold.

  2. In a saucepan, boil the milk with the bay leaf and cinnamon for flavor.

  3. Pour the flavored milk over the muffins in the mold.

  4. Sprinkle more sugar on top since the muffins are not sweet.

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

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Cinnamon and sugar 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

Muffins
Provide the bread-like base that soaks up the custard and sets into a soft pudding.
Milk
Supplies the liquid that moistens the muffins and sets with heat to form the custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness, which the plain muffins lack, and helps the top brown.
Raisins
Add pockets of concentrated sweetness and moisture throughout the pudding.
Butter
Greases the mold so the pudding releases cleanly and adds richness to the surface.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Baking until the custard firms is essential; underbaking leaves the milk liquid and the pudding runny, while the proteins in the milk and eggs coagulate as they heat.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinthe original
  4. Applefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cinnamon, milk, sugar. 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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