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Dessert

Jelly Pudding

A baked pudding made from milk, bread crumbs, egg yolks, and sugar, topped with jelly and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Jelly 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.

Make the base

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine milk, bread crumbs, egg yolks, and sugar.

  3. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for about 30 minutes.

Top and brown

  1. Once cool, spread jelly over the pudding.

  2. Beat the egg whites with a little sugar until stiff peaks form.

  3. Spread the beaten egg whites on top of the pudding.

  4. Return the pudding to the oven for a few minutes to lightly brown the egg whites.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Provides liquid that gives the pudding a soft, custardy body.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the liquid and give the pudding its body and structure.
Egg yolks
Set during baking to bind the pudding and add richness.
Sugar
Sweetens the base and helps the beaten egg whites hold stiff peaks.
Egg whites
Whipped into a meringue that browns lightly on top in the oven.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Egg whites need to be fully whipped with sugar so the foam holds its shape and bakes into a stable, lightly browned meringue. Underbeaten whites will weep or slump on the pudding.

“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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