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Dessert

Ginger Pudding

A baked pudding made with butter, eggs, sugar, ginger, breadcrumbs, vanilla, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Ginger Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Stir butter, eggs, salt, sugar, preserved ginger, cake or bread crumbs, vanilla, and sweet milk in a bowl for 5 minutes.

  2. Butter six cups and fill them with the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the cups in deep pans filled with boiling water to half their height.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

  3. Turn out onto a hot dish and serve with a good hot sauce.

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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Eggs
Set the pudding and give it structure as they cook.
Cake or bread crumbs
Absorb the liquid and give the pudding body and a tender texture.
Sweet milk
Provides moisture and forms the custard that sets in the oven.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown lightly in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and keeps the cups from sticking when turned out.

The step that matters

Place the cups in boiling water. The water bath surrounds the cups with gentle, even heat, so the eggs set into a smooth custard instead of curdling or drying out at the edges.

Swap the ginger

The recipe marks ginger as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, sugar, bread, vanilla, milk):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, sugar, bread, vanilla, milk. 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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