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Dessert

Cherry Pudding, Baked

A layered baked pudding of cherries, bread, sugar, lemon rind, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cherry Pudding, Baked

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

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

Layer the pudding

  1. Layer half of the cherries in a well‑buttered pie dish.

  2. Sprinkle with a little sugar and some lemon rind.

  3. Add a layer of buttered bread slices.

  4. Repeat the layers until the dish is full, finishing with cherries and sugar on top.

  5. Pour water over the entire dish.

Bake

  1. Bake for 45 minutes.

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. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + breadtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,445 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + breadtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,638 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Cherries
Provide the fruit base and juice that flavour and moisten the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the cherries and helps draw out their juices.
Bread
Soaks up the cherry juice and gives the pudding a soft, set body.
Lemon rind
Adds bright aromatic oils that cut through the sweetness of the fruit.

The step that matters

Pouring the water over the dish. Water added to the layered dish must soak evenly through the bread and fruit; uneven layering can leave dry bread on top or soggy patches below, so the layers should be packed well before baking.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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