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Dessert

Carrot Pudding

A baked dessert made with carrots, sponge cakes, milk, eggs, butter, brandy, sugar, and candied peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Carrot 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. Boil the carrots until tender, then rub through a fine sieve.

  2. Place the sponge cakes in a basin and pour the boiling milk over them.

  3. Whisk the eggs until frothy, then mix with the milk and cake until smooth.

Assemble and bake

  1. Combine the carrot puree, egg mixture, and butter, then add sugar to taste.

  2. Transfer to a baking dish and garnish with candied peel.

  3. 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. Carrot + orangetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  3. Brandy + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,706 recipes

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

  4. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Milk + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Provide the bulk and sweet flavour, and thicken the pudding once pureed.
Eggs
Set the pudding into a custard-like structure as they cook.
Sponge cakes
Soak up the hot milk to form a soft, tender body for the pudding.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, moist texture.
Milk
Softens the cake and adds moisture to the custard base.

The step that matters

Baking until set. Eggs firm as they cook, so pulling the pudding too early leaves it loose, while over-baking can make it dry and curdled. Check that the centre is just set.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, butter, brandy, sugar, 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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