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Dessert

Northumberland Puddings

A steamed or baked pudding made with flour, milk, butter, currants, candied orange peel, brandy, spice, and eggs, served with wine sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Northumberland Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the base

  1. Stir flour into boiling milk until thickened.

  2. Sweeten the mixture and boil for a few minutes.

  3. Pour into a basin and let it cool until firm.

Bake and serve

  1. Stir in melted butter, currants, candied orange peel, brandy, spice, and beaten eggs.

  2. Pour the mixture into buttered tea cups.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.

  4. Turn out and pour wine sauce over the puddings.

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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Thickens the boiled milk into a firm base that holds the pudding's shape.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the puddings structure and a tender, custardy crumb.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the puddings brown lightly in the oven.
Currants
Provide pockets of concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Let the base cool until firm. If the thickened milk mixture is still hot or loose when the eggs and butter go in, the batter will not hold together well and the eggs may scramble. Cooling until firm gives a stable base that bakes into a set, even pudding.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, butter, currant, brandy, egg, wine):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, butter, currant, brandy, egg, wine. 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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