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Dessert

Continental Pudding

A sweet pudding made with eggs, buttermilk, jam, sugar, spices, and baked, served with a caramel sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Continental Pudding

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 the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, mix sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and baking soda.

  3. Add the beaten eggs and buttermilk, and stir until combined.

  4. Fold in the jam or preserves.

Bake the pudding

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking pan and bake until set.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine 1 cup sugar and 1 cup boiling water in a saucepan.

  2. Simmer gently for 10 minutes.

  3. Stir in 1 teaspoon butter and 1 teaspoon vanilla.

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. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

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

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
Set into a firm structure as they heat, holding the pudding together.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and tenderness, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in buttermilk to release gas that lifts the batter.
Jam or preserves
Adds sweetness, fruit flavor and moisture throughout the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps keep it moist and tender.

The step that matters

Bake until set. The beaten eggs firm up as their proteins set with heat. Pulling the pudding too early leaves it wet and loose in the centre, while the set structure is what holds the pudding together.

“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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