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Dessert

Domestic Pudding

A cream-based pudding flavored with lemon peel, nutmeg, and eggs, thickened with bread crumbs and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Domestic Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Sweeten the cream and boil it with the lemon peel.

  2. Add the bread crumbs to the cream and boil for 8 minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. When thick, add the butter, nutmeg, and beaten eggs; mix well for a few minutes.

Cook the pudding

  1. Bake or boil the pudding.

  2. If boiling, ensure the water is boiling quickly when you add the pudding and stir for a minute.

  3. Dip the pudding in a pan of cold water immediately after removing it from the pot to prevent sticking.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  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

Cream
Provides richness and moisture, and sets into a soft, tender body when combined with the bread.
Crumbs of a small loaf of bread
Thickens the cream as it boils and gives the pudding its body.
Fresh butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm when cooked.

The step that matters

Keep the water at a rolling boil when adding the pudding. Adding the pudding to water that is not boiling quickly can let it sit in cooler liquid and cook unevenly or stick. Stirring briefly after adding it helps keep it from settling and sticking to the pot.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, bread, butter, nutmeg, 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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