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Dessert

English Wine Pudding

A pudding made with wine, eggs, macaroons, and ladyfingers, baked and topped with whipped egg whites and almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

English Wine 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 the base

  1. Line a pudding dish with macaroons and lady fingers, reserving five macaroons for decoration.

  2. In a saucepan, combine wine, water, egg yolks, and powdered sugar.

  3. Add the cinnamon stick to the mixture.

  4. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  5. Pour the hot mixture over the lined cakes.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Sweeten the beaten egg whites.

  3. Spread the sweetened egg whites over the pudding once the wine mixture is cool.

  4. Decorate the pudding with lengthwise cut almonds, citron, and the reserved macaroons.

  5. Place the pudding in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for about five minutes to brown.

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 + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Wine + cinnamontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,170 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  4. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

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

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

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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the warm wine custard, and whites whipped stiff form a light topping that browns.
Macaroons and lady fingers
Absorb the wine mixture, forming a soft, moist cake base under the custard.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the wine mixture and the egg white topping.
Wine
Provides the main flavor and moisture of the custard layer.

The step that matters

Spread the meringue only after the wine mixture is cool. Spreading the whipped whites over a hot custard can cause them to weep or deflate, and the topping will not hold its volume and brown evenly. Cooling first keeps the foam stable for browning in the oven.

“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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