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Dessert

Cherry Pudding

A bread pudding made with milk, butter, sugar, eggs, lemon rind, cinnamon, and cherries, steamed for two hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Cherry Pudding

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cherry Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bread base

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Break the bread into small pieces and add the bread to the milk.

  3. Cook until the mixture separates from the sides of the kettle.

  4. Remove from heat and let it cool.

Make the batter

  1. Stir in the butter, sugar, egg yolks, lemon rind, and cinnamon.

  2. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

Assemble and steam

  1. Butter a pudding mold with a tight-fitting cover.

  2. Layer the batter and cherries in the mold, starting and ending with batter.

  3. Steam for two 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Bread
Soaks up the milk and custard, giving the pudding its body and soft crumb.
Eggs
Set the batter as they cook, giving the pudding structure, while the whites add lightness.
Milk
Hydrates the bread and forms the custard that moistens the pudding.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps tenderize the crumb.
Cherries
Add fruity sweetness and moisture in layers through the pudding.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites gently. Egg whites hold air that gives lightness. Stirring them vigorously knocks out that air, leaving a denser pudding after steaming.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, butter, sugar, egg, cinnamon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, butter, sugar, egg, cinnamon. 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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