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Common Bread and Butter Pudding

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,983 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Common Bread and Butter Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Sweeten a pint and a half of milk with four ounces of Lisbon sugar; stir it to four large well-beaten eggs, or to five small ones, grate half a nutmeg to them, and pour the mixture into a dish which holds nearly three pints, and which is filled almost to the brim with layers of bread and butter, between which three ounces of currants have been strewed. Lemon-grate, or orange-flower water can be added to this pudding instead of nutmeg, when preferred. From three quarters of an hour to an hour will bake it.

  2. Milk, 1-1/2 pint; Lisbon sugar, 4 oz.; eggs, 4 large, or 5 small; 1/2 small nutmeg; currants, 3 oz.: baked 3/4 to 1 hour.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

201Calories
7 gProtein
6 gFat
30 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Eliza Acton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Currant + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,983 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Currant + eggtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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