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Dessert

Venoise Pudding

A steamed pudding made with stale bread, raisins, candied lemon peel, sugar, milk, cream, egg yolks, sherry, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Venoise Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a saucepan, cook the sugar until it turns black.

  2. Add the milk, cream, egg yolks, bread, raisins, lemon peel, lemon rind, sugar, and sherry, then mix well.

Steam and serve

  1. Butter a china mold and pour the mixture into it.

  2. Cover with buttered paper and steam for 2.5 hours.

  3. Turn out and serve with German sauce poured around it.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread
Soaks up the liquid and gives the pudding its body and structure.
Egg yolks
Set during steaming to give the pudding a firm, custard-like texture.
Milk
Provides the liquid that softens the bread and keeps the pudding moist.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, producing a smoother, more tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, when caramelised, a deep flavour and colour.
Sherry
Adds aromatic, fruity flavour that complements the raisins and lemon.

The step that matters

Steaming the pudding. The egg yolks must set gently. If the steam is too fierce or water enters the mold, the custard can turn watery or pockmarked instead of smooth and firm.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, raisin, sugar, milk, cream, egg, sherry):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, raisin, sugar, milk, cream, egg, sherry. 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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