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Ginger or Cinnamon Pudding

A simple milk-based pudding flavored with ginger or cinnamon and set by steaming or baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Ginger or Cinnamon Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan until warm.

  2. Stir in the sugar until dissolved.

  3. Beat the egg in a separate bowl, then gradually add the warm milk mixture.

  4. Add ginger or cinnamon to taste.

Bake or steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a pudding dish and steam or bake 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. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  2. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Milk + gingertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,519 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Milk
Provides the liquid base and moisture that the egg sets into a soft custard.
Egg
Sets with gentle heat to give the pudding its firm, sliceable structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavour of the milk and egg.
Ginger or cinnamon
Adds warm aroma and spice flavour to the pudding.

The step that matters

Add the warm milk to the egg gradually. Egg proteins set when heated, so adding warm milk slowly while beating tempers the egg and helps prevent it from scrambling or curdling in the custard.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, 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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