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Dessert

Christmas Pudding

A steamed or baked dessert made with bread, raisins, eggs, milk, butter, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Christmas Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the bread

  1. Slice the loaf of bread and cut off the crust, making medium-thick slices.

  2. Butter each slice well.

  3. Fit the bread into a cake tin in layers, sprinkling seeded raisins between the layers.

Make the custard

  1. Make a sweet custard by whisking together the eggs and milk, then season with grated nutmeg.

  2. Pour the custard over the bread, filling the tin.

  3. Press down and place a weight on top to keep the bread submerged in custard.

  4. Let it stand overnight.

  5. In the morning, if the custard has been absorbed, add more to cover.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for about an hour, or until puffed up and light brown.

  2. Serve with or without 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. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  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

Bread
Forms the structure, soaking up the custard to become the body of the pudding.
Eggs
Set the custard when baked, giving the pudding its firm, sliceable texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, keeping the pudding moist as it bakes.
Seeded raisins
Add pockets of sweetness and chew between the bread layers.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the bread brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Keeping the bread submerged overnight. Bread that rises above the custard dries out and bakes unevenly. Weighting it and topping up the custard keeps every layer soaked so the pudding sets moist throughout.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, egg, milk, nutmeg. 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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