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Dessert

Military Puddings

A baked or boiled pudding made from bread crumbs, sugar, suet, lemon rind and juice, greased in cups.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Military Puddings

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mix together the bread crumbs, sugar, and suet in a bowl.

  2. Mince the lemon rind and squeeze the juice into the mixture, stirring well.

Cook and serve

  1. Grease small cups or molds with butter and fill them with the mixture.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes.

  3. Alternatively, form the mixture into small balls and boil them.

  4. Serve with lemon or 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Bread + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,445 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

Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and body that hold the pudding together.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the pudding brown.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and adds flavour.

The step that matters

Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes. Suet needs enough heat to melt and set the crumb structure without drying out. Overbaking dries the pudding, while underbaking leaves it wet and loose in the centre.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, butter. 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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