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Dessert

Cracker Plum Pudding

A pudding made from soaked crackers, milk, eggs, and raisins, baked and served with wine sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,155 recipes. Both carry decanoic acid, which smells acides aroma. The science ↓

Cracker Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Soak the crackers in the milk overnight.

  2. Beat the eggs until very light.

  3. Mix all ingredients together.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for one hour.

  2. Let cool slightly before serving with wine 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. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  2. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + raisintop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,556 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Boston crackers
Soak up the milk and give the pudding its body and crumb structure.
Milk
Provides the liquid that softens the crackers and keeps the pudding moist.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set as it bakes, giving a firm, sliceable texture.
Raisins
Add sweetness, chewy texture and concentrated fruit flavour throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Baking the pudding. The eggs set as the custard-like mixture heats. Baking too long or at too high a heat can overcook the eggs, making the pudding dry or grainy. Letting it cool slightly helps it hold its shape.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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.

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