Skip to main content
Dessert

A Squash Pudding

A baked dessert made with squash, butter, powdered sugar, milk, crackers, eggs, wine, brandy, rose water, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Leslie · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

A Squash Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the squash

  1. Pare, cut into pieces, and stew in a very little water a yellow winter squash until it is quite soft.

  2. Drain it dry, and mash it in a cullender.

  3. Put the mashed squash into a pan, and mix with a quarter of a pound of butter.

  4. Prepare two pounded crackers, or an equal quantity of grated stale bread.

Make the batter

  1. Stir gradually a quarter of a pound of powdered sugar into a quart of rich milk, and add by degrees the squash and the powdered biscuit.

  2. Beat nine eggs very light, and stir them gradually into the mixture.

  3. Add a glass of white wine, a glass of brandy, a glass of rose water, and a tablespoonful of mixed spice, nutmeg, mace, and cinnamon powdered.

  4. Stir the whole very hard until all ingredients are thoroughly mixed.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for three quarters of an hour in a buttered dish.

  2. When cold, grate white sugar over it.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

851Calories
28 gProtein
27 gFat
123 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 8 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
Macenot in our table0

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

By Eliza Leslie. 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten eggs add structure and lift, setting the pudding as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, giving the pudding a tender, smooth texture.
Rich milk
Provides liquid and richness that bind the squash into a soft custard.
Crackers
Pounded crackers or stale bread absorb liquid and help give the pudding body.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Stir the whole very hard until all ingredients are thoroughly mixed. Thorough mixing spreads the eggs, squash and crumbs evenly so the pudding sets uniformly rather than in patches or layers.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, egg, nutmeg, cinnamon. 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.

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipes