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Dessert

Cumberland Pudding

A boiled fruit pudding made with eggs, milk, sugar, raisins, currants, apples, nutmeg, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Cumberland Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs well.

  2. Mix the eggs with milk and sugar.

  3. Add raisins, currants, apples, nutmeg, and salt; mix well.

Prepare the cloth

  1. Dip a pudding cloth in boiling water, wring it out, and flour it.

Boil and serve

  1. Put the pudding mixture into the cloth and tie it up.

  2. Boil the pudding for 3.5 hours.

  3. Serve with pudding 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. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  2. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  3. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Currant + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firmly as it cooks.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid so the eggs form a soft, tender custard.
Lump sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds to its soft, moist texture.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.
Currants
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.
Apples
Add moisture and a light fruity tang that lifts the richness.

The step that matters

Tying the cloth. The cloth must be floured and tied with room for the pudding to expand; if it is loose, water seeps in and the pudding turns soggy, while a tight seal keeps the mixture moist during the long boil.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, sugar, raisin, apple, nutmeg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, sugar, raisin, apple, nutmeg. 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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