Skip to main content
Dessert

Another Victoria Pudding

A steamed pudding made with bread crumbs, sugar, spices, marrow, jam, apples, cream, brandy, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Apricot and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 777 recipes. Both carry gamma-undecalactone, which smells peach, sweet. The science ↓

Another Victoria Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine bread crumbs, sugar, and sweet spice in a large bowl.

  2. Add minced marrow, apricot jam, chopped apples, cream, brandy, and eggs, then mix all ingredients together until well combined.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered mold.

  2. Steam or boil for 2 hours.

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. Apricot + appletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together777 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).

  2. Apricot + brandytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  4. Apple + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set firm as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and body that hold the pudding together.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the batter.
Minced marrow
Adds richness and fat, giving the pudding a moist, tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to browning and flavor.

The step that matters

Steaming the mold. Steam or boil gently and keep the water level steady for the full 2 hours. Steady, moist heat cooks the eggs and batter evenly through, so the pudding sets without drying or becoming watery.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sugar, apricot, cream, brandy, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, apricot, cream, brandy, 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.

You might also like

Apple Bread PuddingApple Bread Pudding21 recipesApple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipes