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Dessert

Scotch Pudding

A barley pudding made with sugar, milk, butter, lemon rind, whisky, and eggs, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Scotch Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. In a stewpan, combine the barley, sugar, and milk.

  2. Add the butter, salt, lemon rind, and whisky, then stir over heat until it boils.

  3. Work the batter until smooth, then mix in the egg yolks.

Bake

  1. Gently fold in the whisked egg whites.

  2. Pour the batter into a slightly buttered pie dish.

  3. Bake in a moderate 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Barley + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together484 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Barley + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. Butter + whiskytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together335 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

Barley
Forms the body of the pudding, giving it bulk and a soft, starchy texture.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and set the custard, while whisked whites add lift and a light structure.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel.
Milk
Provides the liquid that moistens the barley and cooks into a creamy batter.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps it brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whisked whites trap air that gives the pudding its lift. Stirring them in vigorously knocks that air out, so folding gently keeps the batter light and airy as it bakes.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, sugar, milk, butter, whisky, 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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