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Dessert

Dessert Backabout

A sweet dessert made from sago, sugar, currant jelly, and water, served chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,256 recipes. The science ↓

Dessert Backabout

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the sago overnight in 1 cup of water.

Make the pudding

  1. In the morning, add 3 cups of water and boil for 15 minutes.

  2. Add the sugar and currant jelly, then stir until dissolved.

  3. Pour into molds and set on ice.

Serve

  1. Serve with cream and sugar.

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. Sugar + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

Sugar and currant barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 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

Sago
Swells and thickens as it cooks, giving the pudding its body and gel-like texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pudding set with a clean, tender bite.
Currant jelly
Adds fruity flavour, sweetness and a tart edge, and helps colour and set the pudding.

The step that matters

Boil the sago until fully clear. Sago starch must cook long enough to gelatinise fully; undercooked grains stay opaque and chalky, and the pudding will not set evenly or taste smooth.

“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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