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Dessert

Sponge Cake Pudding

A pudding made from stale sponge cakes, lemon, milk, eggs, orange juice, sugar, and butter, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Sponge Cake Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Grate the stale sponge cakes and the lemon peel.

  2. Mix the grated cakes and lemon peel with the lemon juice and cold milk until soft.

  3. Beat the eggs and gradually stir them into the mixture.

  4. Add the orange juice, sugar, and melted butter, and mix well.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a dish lined with pastry around the edges.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until set.

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 + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  4. Milk + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale sponge cakes
Provide the bulk and crumb structure that the custard-like mixture holds together.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the pudding its firm, sliceable body.
Cold milk
Moistens the crumbs and softens them so they absorb the other liquids.
Orange juice
Adds liquid and fruity acidity that balances the sugar.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist texture.

The step that matters

Baking in a slow oven until set. Eggs set gradually, and high heat can curdle them or make the pudding rubbery and watery. A low, slow bake lets the mixture firm evenly without overcooking the edges.

Swap the orange

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

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

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