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Dessert

Squash Pudding

A baked pudding made from stewed squash, grated bread, eggs, sugar, and cream, flavored with mace or lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Squash 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Line a pudding dish with thin potato paste.

Make the filling

  1. In a large bowl, combine the stewed squash, grated bread, salt, eggs, sugar, and flavoring.

  2. Stir in the cream until well mixed.

  3. Pour the mixture into the lined dish.

Bake

  1. Bake until set and golden.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Bread + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together434 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Cream + potatotop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Mace + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,009 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Squash
Forms the body of the pudding and gives it its main flavour and moisture.
Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the pudding its firm structure.
Grated bread
Absorbs liquid and gives the pudding body so it holds together when set.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, producing a softer, silkier texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the golden browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Bake until set and golden. Eggs thicken as they heat, so underbaking leaves the centre runny while overbaking can make the custard grainy and dry. Look for a firm centre and light golden top.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, egg, sugar, cream, potato):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, sugar, cream, potato. 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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