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Dessert

Black Currant Pudding

A baked pudding of black currants, sugar, rice, milk, butter, eggs and cream, lined in a basin with pudding paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Tea and rice work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 197 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Black Currant 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.

Prepare the pudding

  1. Butter a basin and line it with pudding paste.

  2. Mix the black currants with 6 ounces of sugar until well combined.

  3. Boil the mixture for 1½ hours.

Make the rice custard

  1. In a separate pot, stew the rice in enough milk to cover it for about 15 minutes. Ensure the rice does not burn.

  2. Once cooked and nearly cool, stir in 1 ounce of butter, 3 beaten eggs, and 3 tablespoons of cream.

Bake and serve

  1. Layer some cooked currants in a pie dish, add sugar to taste, and pour the rice mixture over them.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

  3. Serve hot or cold.

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. Tea + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together197 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Black currants
Provide the main fruit flavour and tartness, and moisture for the pudding.
Eggs
Set the rice mixture into a custard when baked, giving it structure.
Rice
Gives the pudding body and a soft, starchy texture once stewed in milk.
Milk
Cooks with the rice to make it tender and adds creaminess to the custard.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a smoother texture and flavour to the custard.

The step that matters

Ensure the rice does not burn. Rice stewed in milk can scorch on the bottom of the pot, which gives a bitter, burnt taste. Stirring and keeping the heat gentle prevents the milk sugars from catching and browning too far.

Swap the black currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Black currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, tea, rice, butter, egg, cream. 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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