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Dessert

College Puddings

A sweet bread pudding made with milk, butter, sugar, bread crumbs, eggs, and candied lemon peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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College Puddings

Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

College Puddings

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the mixture

  1. Boil the milk with a strip of lemon peel.

  2. Pour the hot milk over the bread crumbs.

  3. Beat in the butter and sugar.

  4. Whisk the eggs and add them along with the candied lemon peel.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into greased molds until they are half full.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + breadtop 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. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Adds moisture and softens the bread crumbs into a loose base.
Bread crumbs
Form the body of the pudding and absorb the liquid.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the pudding its structure.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavour.
Candied lemon peel
Adds aroma and a bright citrus flavour.

The step that matters

Pouring the mixture into the molds half full. Egg-set puddings puff and expand as they heat, so leaving room in each mold keeps the mixture from overflowing and lets it rise evenly in the oven.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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