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Dessert

Devonshire Brandy Pudding

A plum pudding soaked in brandy, baked with a custard made of eggs, milk, lemon, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Devonshire Brandy Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the strips of cold plum pudding in brandy or rum for a few minutes.

  2. Grease a mold with butter and layer the soaked pudding strips neatly inside.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, lemon, and nutmeg to make the custard.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour enough custard into the mold to fill it completely.

  2. Tie a floured cloth over the mold and boil for one hour.

  3. Serve the remaining custard over the pudding.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Plum + brandytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together168 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Plum + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together406 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Plum + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together623 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold plum pudding
Forms the base layer and absorbs the custard as it cooks.
Eggs
Set the custard so it holds its shape when cooked.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and keeps it tender.
Brandy or rum
Soaks into the pudding strips and adds a boozy aroma.

The step that matters

Tie a floured cloth over the mold and boil for one hour. The cloth must be sealed snugly and floured so water cannot seep into the mold and dilute the custard. Egg custard sets gently; a steady simmer rather than a hard boil keeps it smooth and prevents it from curdling or turning rubbery.

Swap the plum

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, butter, egg, milk, lemon, nutmeg. 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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