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Dessert

Cranberry Pudding

A pudding made from stewed cranberries layered over a potato and cream paste, boiled and served with sweet or cold sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Cranberry Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Stew the cranberries in minimal water until soft.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Sweeten it to taste.

  4. Let it cool.

  5. Prepare a potato and cream paste.

Assemble and boil

  1. Spread the cooled cranberries an inch thick over the paste.

  2. Roll the mixture in a floured cloth.

  3. Tie it securely at both ends.

  4. Boil the pudding for two hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with sweet sauce or cold sauce made by mixing sugar and cold butter.

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. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cranberries
Provide the tart fruit filling and, once stewed, the moist body of the pudding.
Potato and cream paste
Forms the base layer that holds the cranberry filling together.
Sugar
Sweetens the tart cranberries to taste.
Cold butter
Enriches the cold sauce with fat for richness and a smooth texture.

The step that matters

Tie it securely at both ends. If the cloth is not sealed tightly, water can seep into the pudding during boiling, making it soggy and diluting the filling. A firm seal keeps the pudding compact and moist.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream, flour, sauce):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, flour, sauce. 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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