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Dessert

Chancellor Pudding

A layered sponge cake pudding with raisins, citron, ratafias, sherry, and a lemon‑flavoured custard, steamed for an hour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chancellor Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Butter a plain round mold thickly and decorate the bottom with alternating rows of raisins and citron in a star pattern.

  2. Add a layer of small sponge cakes, sprinkle with a few raisins and finely chopped citron, then add 4 or 5 ratafias, and pour 1 teaspoon of sherry over them.

  3. Repeat the layering until the mold is nearly full.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, combine 2 cups of milk, sugar to taste, and lemon rind, then mix in 4 beaten egg yolks.

  2. Stir the mixture over low heat until it thickens, but do not let it boil.

  3. Once thickened, let the custard cool, then pour it gradually over the layered cakes.

Steam and serve

  1. Cover the top with a piece of well-buttered writing paper, place the mold in a saucepan, and steam or boil gently for about 1 hour.

  2. Let the pudding stand for 4 to 5 minutes before turning it out.

  3. Serve with wine sauce.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Sherry + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  5. Raisin + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set on gentle heat, binding the pudding together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, giving it a soft, creamy texture.
Small sponge cakes
Act as the absorbent structure that soaks up the custard and holds the layers together.
Sherry
Adds a light aromatic flavor that moistens the cake layers.

The step that matters

Stir the custard over low heat without boiling. Egg yolks set into a smooth custard at moderate heat, but boiling makes them scramble and curdle, leaving the custard grainy and thin.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

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