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Dessert

Bakewell Pudding

A custard-like pudding with bread crumbs, almonds, and preserved fruit, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Bakewell Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Mix the milk with the yolks and whites of the eggs beaten separately.

  2. Add the sugar, melted butter, and ground almonds to the mixture.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the bread crumbs in a dish and add a little preserved fruit on top.

  2. Pour the mixture over the bread crumbs and fruit.

  3. Bake for 1 hour in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Egg + breadtop 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

Eggs
Yolks and whites set the custard, giving it a tender, sliceable structure as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the custard a smooth, tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps it brown lightly in the oven.
Almonds
Add nutty aroma and flavor to the custard and a little body.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the liquid custard and form a soft base that holds the mixture.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture over the bread crumbs and fruit. Eggs set into a custard as they bake, so the mixture must be poured evenly over the crumbs and fruit, not stirred into them. Uneven pouring leaves dry or soggy patches once baked.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Cocoafits about as well
  4. Peasfits about as well

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