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Dessert

Pudding a LA Reine

A custard pudding made with bread crumbs, citron, raisins, orange peel, milk, and eggs, baked in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Pudding a LA Reine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Butter a mold.

  2. Fill it with bread crumbs, citron, raisins, and grated orange peel.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the eggs and mix them with the milk.

  2. Strain the mixture and pour it over the crumbs.

Cook and serve

  1. Close the mold tightly and tie it.

  2. Boil for 2 hours.

  3. Serve hot with 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Raisin + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,684 recipes

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, binding the crumbs and milk into a firm pudding.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and custard, giving the pudding its body and soft structure.
Milk
Moistens the crumbs and forms the custard base that the eggs set.
Raisins
Add pockets of concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Citron
Adds candied, slightly bitter sweetness and chewy texture to the pudding.

The step that matters

Close the mold tightly and tie it.. A loose seal lets water enter during boiling, diluting the custard and making the pudding soggy. A tight seal keeps the steam and moisture in, so the eggs set evenly.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, raisin, milk, egg, 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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