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Dessert

Italian Steamed Pudding

A steamed pudding made with bread crumbs, milk, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Italian Steamed Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the pudding

  1. Combine bread crumbs and boiling milk in a bowl.

  2. Stir in sugar, egg yolks, vanilla, and raisins.

  3. Whip egg whites until stiff and fold into the mixture.

  4. Pour into a greased pudding mold and steam until risen, about 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately with sabayon.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Vanilla + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together782 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Bread crumbs
Soak up the hot milk and form the body of the pudding.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help set the pudding as it steams.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the mixture and help it rise.
Milk
Hydrates the bread crumbs and adds moisture and softness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps tenderize the texture.
Raisins
Add pockets of concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiff whites hold the air that lifts the pudding. Overmixing or deflating them during folding leaves a dense result, so fold gently until just combined.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, sugar, egg, vanilla. 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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