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Dessert

A Marrow Pudding

A savory pudding made with beef marrow, stale bread, milk, eggs, citrus zest, spices, candied peel, currants, brandy, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

A Marrow Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the base

  1. Remove the marrow from the beef marrow bone.

  2. Chop the marrow small, leaving a few large pieces for the top.

  3. Place the chopped marrow and stale cake or bread in a pan.

  4. Pour the boiling milk over the mixture.

  5. Soak the mixture.

  6. Beat it smooth.

Make the pudding

  1. Beat the eggs with a fork and add the beaten eggs to the mixture.

  2. Add the lemon zest, grated nutmeg, candied peel, currants, brandy, and sugar to taste.

  3. Place a rim of puff pastry around your dish.

  4. Pour the pudding mixture into the dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Garnish the top with candied citron, currants, and the reserved marrow pieces.

  2. Bake in a warm 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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Nutmeg + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef marrow
Melts during baking to enrich the custard with richness and a silky texture.
Stale savoy cake or diet bread
Absorbs the hot milk and gives the pudding a soft, tender body.
Milk
Hydrates the bread and forms the liquid base that sets into custard.
Eggs
Coagulate on heating to set the pudding into a sliceable custard.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour depth to the pudding.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs set through gentle heat; if the oven is too hot the custard can curdle or turn grainy, and underbaking leaves it runny in the middle.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, milk, egg, lemon, nutmeg, orange):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, milk, egg, lemon, nutmeg, orange. 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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