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Dessert

Strawberry Pudding

A baked pudding made with milk, eggs, cake crumbs, strawberries, and a vanilla‑flavored meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Strawberry 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 the base

  1. Soak the cake crumbs in the milk.

  2. Beat the butter, the yolks of the eggs, and the whites of two eggs together.

  3. Add the mixture to the soaked cake crumbs and milk, and stir well.

  4. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes.

Top and brown

  1. Clean and hull the strawberries.

  2. Pour the strawberries over the baked pudding.

  3. Make a meringue with the remaining egg whites and 1 cup of sugar.

  4. Flavor the meringue with vanilla.

  5. Spread the meringue over the strawberries.

  6. Place the pudding back in the oven for a few moments to brown the meringue.

  7. Serve with cream.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich and set the custard, while whites are whipped into the meringue for lightness.
Cake crumbs
Soaked in milk, they soften and give the pudding its body.
Milk
Moistens the crumbs and forms the liquid base that sets when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the pudding a tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the meringue and helps it hold its structure when whipped.
Strawberries
Add fruit flavour and moisture over the baked pudding.

The step that matters

Browning the meringue. Meringue can weep or brown unevenly if overbaked or left too long. A brief stint in the oven is enough to colour the sugar and cook the whites without drying the pudding beneath.

“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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