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Dessert

Cumberland Pudding

A steamed pudding made with apples, bread crumbs, sugar, currants, beef marrow or suet, lemon, nutmeg, eggs, flour, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Cumberland Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Mix all ingredients well together, then beat the mixture for 10 minutes.

  2. Butter a basin and pour in the mixture.

  3. Tie a cloth over the basin.

Cook

  1. Place the basin in boiling water and boil for 3 hours.

  2. Alternatively, bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1.5 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with sifted sugar over it.

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

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

  2. Apple + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set it into a firm, sliceable pudding as they cook.
Bread crumbs
Provide bulk and body, soaking up moisture to give the pudding structure.
Beef marrow or suet
Adds richness and fat, keeping the pudding moist and tender as it cooks.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and depth, and helps the pudding brown slightly.
Currants
Add chewy pockets of fruit sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture for 10 minutes. Thorough beating distributes the eggs and fat evenly through the crumbs and sugar, so the pudding sets with a uniform texture rather than separating or turning dense in patches.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, bread, sugar, beef, lemon, nutmeg, egg. 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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