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Dessert

College Pudding

A sweet bread pudding made with suet, currants, citron, nutmeg, eggs, butter, and brandy, fried and served with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Grate the bread crumb into a bowl.

  2. Mix the suet, currants, citron, grated nutmeg, and beaten egg yolks together.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff, then fold them into the mixture.

  4. Shape the mixture into the size and shape of a goose egg.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat the butter or ghee in a frying pan over medium heat.

  2. Fry the pudding until light brown, turning frequently to brown evenly.

  3. After frying, mix a glass of brandy into the grease left in the pan.

  4. Serve the pudding with pudding sauce or custard.

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

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

  2. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  4. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Nutmeg + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites beaten stiff add lightness and help the pudding hold its shape while binding the mixture.
Suet
Adds richness and fat, keeping the pudding moist and tender as it cooks.
Bread crumb
Provides body and absorbs moisture, giving the pudding structure.
Butter or ghee
Fat for frying that helps the outside brown evenly.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy texture through the pudding.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Beaten whites trap air, which lightens the mixture. Overmixing or deflating them while folding makes the pudding dense and heavy.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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