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Dessert

Newmarket Pudding

A custard bread pudding with currants and raisins baked in a buttered dish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Newmarket Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the custard

  1. Combine milk, sugar, bay leaf, lemon rind, and cinnamon in a saucepan.

  2. Simmer gently for 10 minutes.

  3. Let the mixture cool.

  4. Mix in the well-whisked egg yolks and egg whites.

  5. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a pie dish.

  2. Layer the bottom with thin slices of bread and butter.

  3. Add a layer of currants and chopped raisins.

  4. Repeat until the dish is nearly full.

  5. Pour the custard over the layers.

  6. Let it soak for 1 hour.

  7. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Eggs
Yolks and whites set the custard, giving the pudding its structure as it bakes.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, providing moisture and a tender texture.
Bread
Soaks up the custard, holding the layers together and giving a soft, pudding-like body.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps it brown lightly in the oven.
Currants and raisins
Add sweetness and chewy fruit pieces between the bread layers.

The step that matters

Let it soak for 1 hour. The bread needs time to absorb the custard fully; soaking gives an evenly moist pudding and prevents dry pockets or a soggy, unset layer after baking.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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