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Dessert

The Bakers Guide

A dessert made by boiling toasted bread crumbs with water, sugar, port, lemon juice, and gelatin, then setting in moulds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Blandy, John · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,189 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

The Bakers Guide

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Toast a pound of wholemeal bread crumbs, including the crust, in a stewpan with one quart of water, and boil slowly for one hour.

  2. Pass the mixture through a hair sieve.

Flavour and set

  1. Add sugar to taste (about 4 ounces), a pint of good port, the juice of two lemons, and two ounces of dissolved gelatin, then mix well and pour into small moulds.

By Blandy, John. 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. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs (in the method)
Form the body of the pudding and soak up the liquid to give a soft, thick texture.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid so the pudding holds its shape when turned out of the moulds.
Sugar (in the method)
Adds sweetness that balances the tartness of the lemon juice and port.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and cuts the sweetness.
Port (in the method)
Adds depth, aroma and sweetness to the liquid.

The step that matters

Passing the mixture through a hair sieve. Straining removes the tough crumb bits and crust so the pudding has a smooth, even texture. Pressing too hard or skipping the sieve leaves a grainy result.

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

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

  1. Raisinbetter flavor fit
  2. Vanillabetter flavor fit
  3. Figbetter flavor fit
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, clove, egg, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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