Why it works: Wine and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,427 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓
Pumpkin 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 the pumpkin
Stew the pumpkin with minimal water, then drain and press it until dry.
Once cooled, weigh out ½ pound and pass it through a sieve.
Make the filling
Stir together the sugar and butter (or cream) until light and fluffy.
Gradually add the spice and liquor to the mixture.
Beat the eggs until light and stir them into the butter and sugar alternately with the pumpkin.
Bake and finish
Cover a soup plate with puff pastry and pour in the mixture.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes.
Once cool, grate sugar over the top.
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.
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Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,427 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
-
Pumpkin + nutmegtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,126 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
-
Butter + winetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,645 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
-
Rose + nutmegtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,067 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
-
Brandy + rosetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together560 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Stewed pumpkin
- Provides the bulk and moisture that give the pudding its soft, set body.
- Eggs
- Set during baking to bind the filling into a custard-like structure.
- Fresh butter or cream
- Adds fat and richness, and creaming with sugar traps air for a lighter texture.
- Powdered white sugar
- Sweetens the filling and helps create a light, fluffy base when creamed with butter.
- Wine and brandy mixed
- Adds aroma and a warm, boozy flavour to the filling.
The step that matters
Drain and press the pumpkin until dry. Excess water in stewed pumpkin thins the filling and can make the baked pudding wet or soggy, so it should be pressed dry before weighing.
Swap the pumpkin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, sugar, wine, brandy, rose, nutmeg):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonfits better
- Pumpkinthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, sugar, wine, brandy, rose, 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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