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Dessert

American Christmas Pudding

A baked pudding made with eggs, milk, rice, sugar, nutmeg, butter, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

American Christmas Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the eggs until light.

  2. Stir the eggs into the milk with salt and rice.

  3. Add sugar, grated nutmeg, and butter.

Bake

  1. Bake for 1 hour in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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

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

  2. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  3. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the milk mixture into a custard as they cook, giving the pudding structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs set and the rice softens in, giving moisture.
Rice
Absorbs liquid and swells as it bakes, adding body and a soft, thick texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender texture.
Nutmeg
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the custard.

The step that matters

Bake at 400°F for 1 hour. The eggs set the milk into a custard as it bakes. Too much heat or too long in the oven can make the eggs curdle and turn the texture watery or rubbery, so the pudding should be checked as it nears the end of the time.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Turmericfits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

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

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