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Dessert

Straw Pudding

A layered pudding made with fine noodles, butter, sugar, cinnamon, coconut, raisins, and beaten egg whites, baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Straw Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Make good noodles and cut them very fine.

  2. Butter a pudding dish well.

Layer and bake

  1. Layer noodles, then sugar, cinnamon, coconut, and raisins.

  2. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth and dot over the top.

  3. Repeat layering until you have 4 layers, ending with the egg whites.

  4. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 1 hour.

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

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

  2. Cinnamon + coconuttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together979 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Good noodles
Form the bulk of the pudding and hold the layers together as they bake.
Egg whites
Whipped to a stiff froth, they set on baking and give the top a light, airy crust.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown as the pudding bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and keeps the dish from sticking as the pudding bakes.
Coconut
Adds chewy texture and toasty flavour between the noodle layers.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to a stiff froth. Egg whites need to be whipped until they hold firm peaks. Underbeaten whites stay runny and sink into the layers, while overbeaten whites turn dry and grainy, so the topping bakes unevenly.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Coconutthe original

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