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Dessert

Remnant Puddings

A pudding made from stale gingerbread crumbs, milk, spices, egg, raisins, and currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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 ↓

Remnant Puddings

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

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

Make the pudding

  1. In a bowl, combine the gingerbread crumbs and boiling milk.

  2. Add cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, and the egg; mix well.

  3. Stir in the raisins and currants.

  4. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 3 hours or until set.

  2. Serve cold.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Gingerbread crumbs
Provide the main body and spiced flavour, soaking up the milk to form the pudding base.
Egg
Binds the mixture and sets during baking to give the pudding a firm, sliceable structure.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.
Currants
Add small pockets of tart, chewy fruit flavour and texture.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Baking long enough lets the egg proteins coagulate so the pudding firms up. Pulling it too early leaves a loose, custardy centre that will not hold its shape when cooled and served.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, egg, raisin. 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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