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Dessert

Exeter Pudding

A baked pudding made with eggs, sugar, rum, bread crumbs, suet, sago, lemon rind, ratafias, sponge cake slices, jam, black currant jelly, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Rum and sherry match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 146 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Exeter Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the mixture

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Beat the eggs with the sugar and rum until well combined.

  3. Gradually add the bread crumbs, suet, sago, and lemon rind to the egg mixture, mixing thoroughly.

Layer and bake

  1. Butter a pudding mold and cover the bottom with ratafias.

  2. Layer the mixture and slices of sponge cake spread with jam alternately, finishing with the mixture on top.

  3. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. For the sauce, warm the black currant jelly with the sherry.

  2. Pour the warm sauce over the pudding when turned out of the mold and serve hot.

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. Rum + sherrytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together146 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Lemon + black curranttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together53 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Sugar + spreadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together260 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set into a firm, sliceable pudding as they cook.
Bread crumbs
Add body and absorb the eggs and rum to give the pudding its structure.
Suet
Adds richness and fat, keeping the pudding moist and tender as it bakes.
Sago
Adds a light, slightly chewy texture that helps the pudding hold its shape.
Moist sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps it brown lightly in the oven.
Black currant jelly
Provides sweetness and fruity acidity in the warm sauce served over the pudding.

The step that matters

Layering the mixture and sponge cake. Spreading the jam-coated sponge evenly between layers of the egg mixture keeps the pudding evenly sweet and moist. Gaps or uneven layers can leave dry or soggy pockets after baking.

Swap the black currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, rum, bread, lemon, spread, sherry):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Black currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, rum, bread, lemon, spread, sherry. 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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