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Dessert

The Carlton, or Conservative Pudding

A steamed pudding made with ratafias, macaroons, sponge cake, cream, egg yolks, sugar, brandy, and decorated with citron strips, dried cherries, and preserved apricots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and apricot work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 513 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

The Carlton, or Conservative Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Soak and mix

  1. Combine ratafias, macaroons, and sponge cake in a basin.

  2. Pour boiling cream over the mixture and let it soak for 30 minutes.

  3. Beat the soaked mixture with a silver fork.

  4. Add the beaten egg yolks and sugar.

  5. Stir in the brandy until well combined.

Mold and steam

  1. Butter a plain mold generously and arrange a decorative pattern with citron strips, dried cherries, and preserved apricots.

  2. Pour the pudding mixture into the mold.

  3. Cover the bottom of the mold with buttered paper.

  4. Tie the mold with a cloth.

  5. Steam the pudding for 1.5 hours.

Serve

  1. Turn the pudding out onto a hot dish.

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. Brandy + apricottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Butter + apricottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,458 recipes

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

  5. Brandy + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and enrich it, helping it set into a firm, sliceable pudding when steamed.
Ratafias
Provide concentrated almond flavour and a dry, crumbly texture that soaks up the cream.
Macaroons
Add almond sweetness and body, absorbing the cream to give the pudding structure.
Sponge cake
Soaks up the boiling cream to form the main body of the pudding.
Boiling cream
Softens the dry crumbs and cake, adding moisture and richness.
Brandy
Adds aromatic flavour that carries through the rich, sweet custard-like body.

The step that matters

Steam the pudding gently under a tied cloth. Egg yolks set when heated, so steaming at a gentle, steady heat keeps the pudding smooth and firm rather than curdled, pocked, or watery.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotthe original
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Strawberryfits about as well

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