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Dessert

Marrow Pudding a Third Way

A pudding made with almonds, cream, bread crumbs, eggs, marrow, candied orange, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Marrow Pudding a Third Way

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Blanch the almonds and soak them in cold water overnight.

  2. Beat the almonds very fine in a mortar with orange flower or rose water.

Make the base

  1. Pour the boiling cream over the bread crumb and let it cool.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and whites for 15 minutes, then add sugar and nutmeg.

  3. Mix the almond paste, cream mixture, egg mixture, marrow, and candied orange together.

Cook the pudding

  1. If using skins, fill them only halfway and boil gently.

  2. Alternatively, bake the pudding.

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. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Nutmeg + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Almonds
Ground into a paste that gives the pudding its body and rich, nutty flavor.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set into a tender, sliceable texture.
Egg whites
Beaten to add air and lightness to the mixture.
Boiling cream
Softens the bread crumb and adds moisture and richness.
Crumb of a penny loaf
Soaks up the cream to give the pudding a soft, light structure.
Marrow
Adds richness and a savory, buttery fat to the pudding.

The step that matters

Fill the skins only halfway. Puddings expand and rise as they cook, so filling skins too full can cause them to burst during boiling.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, cream, egg, sugar, nutmeg. 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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