Skip to main content
Dessert

Grandma's Cracker Pudding

A steamed pudding made with Boston crackers, milk, raisins, eggs, sugar, nutmeg, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Grandma's Cracker Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the crackers in the milk.

  2. Boil the raisins until soft.

  3. In a bowl, beat together the eggs, sugar, grated nutmeg, and salt.

  4. Butter a piece of paper and place it in the bottom of a pail.

Assemble and steam

  1. Layer the soaked crackers, some raisins, and a few spoonfuls of the egg mixture in the pail, repeating until all ingredients are used.

  2. Pour the remaining milk on top, cover, and steam for 3 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. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  4. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  5. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Boston crackers
Absorb the milk and form the bulk and body of the pudding.
Eggs
Set during steaming to bind the pudding into a firm, sliceable custard.
Milk
Soaks the crackers and supplies moisture that cooks into the custard.
Raisins
Add pockets of sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the savory notes of the nutmeg and salt.

The step that matters

Steam for 3 hours, covered. Gentle, steady steam heats the egg and milk mixture slowly so it sets smoothly without curdling or turning rubbery. Keeping the lid on holds in moisture so the crackers stay soft and the pudding does not dry out.

Swap the raisin

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

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

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

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes