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Dessert

Jelly Pudding

A dessert made from bread crumbs, milk, eggs, sugar, and topped with jelly and meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Jelly 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.

Prepare the base

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine the bread or cracker crumbs, milk, beaten egg yolks, and sugar.

  3. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for 30 minutes.

Add the topping

  1. Once cool, spread jelly over the top.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gradually add a little sugar.

  3. Spread the meringue over the jelly layer.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 or cracker crumbs
Provides the body of the pudding, absorbing the milk to form a soft structure.
Milk
Supplies the liquid that softens the crumbs and gives the custard its moisture.
Egg yolks
Set during baking to thicken the custard and add richness.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the meringue become glossy and stable.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that bakes into a light, airy meringue topping.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites must be whipped until stiff peaks form and sugar is added gradually so the foam holds its air and bakes into a stable meringue rather than weeping or collapsing.

“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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