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Dessert

Quaking Pudding

A custard-like dessert made with cream, eggs, flour, sugar, nutmeg, and boiled in a butter‑greased cloth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Quaking Pudding

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Quaking Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the cream and let it cool until almost cold.

  2. Beat the eggs with the flour for 15 minutes.

Make and cook the pudding

  1. Mix the egg mixture with the cream, then add sugar and nutmeg.

  2. Grease a cloth with butter and tie the mixture inside.

  3. Boil for 1 hour, then turn out to serve.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Cream
Adds richness and moisture, giving the pudding a soft, creamy body.
Eggs
Set as they heat, giving the pudding its firm, custard-like structure.
Flour
Stabilises the egg mixture so it holds together during boiling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the richness of the cream.

The step that matters

Tying the cloth. The eggs and flour set as they heat, so the mixture needs a snug, secure wrap. A loose or leaky cloth lets water in, which can make the pudding soggy and cause it to lose its shape.

“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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