Skip to main content
Dessert

Fruit Pudding

A steamed pudding made with milk, butter, eggs, flour, stale bread crumbs, currants, nutmeg, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Fruit Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the egg yolks with half of the warm milk and melted butter.

  2. Stir in the flour until smooth, then add the remaining milk and sugar.

  3. Mix in the bread crumbs and currants, followed by the nutmeg, salt, baking powder, and brandy.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with 1 tablespoon of sugar until stiff peaks form, then gently fold them into the mixture.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a buttered mold that closes tightly.

  2. Place the mold in a saucepan filled with boiling water, cover to retain steam, and boil for 2 hours, replenishing water as needed.

  3. Serve with 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Egg whites whipped to stiff peaks lighten the batter, and yolks add richness and binding.
Flour
Provides structure so the pudding holds its shape after steaming.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and butter to form a moist, tender body.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking, helping the pudding rise and stay light.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist crumb.
Currants
Add pockets of sweetness and fruitiness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Keep the steaming water boiling and topped up. Steam gently cooks the pudding evenly without drying it. If the water drops too low, the pan heat falls, the pudding cooks unevenly, and the batter can turn heavy or dry.

Swap the currant

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

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

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

More fruit pudding recipes

Steamed 91Boiled 17Cold 14English 14Baked 12Tapioca 11 See all 210 →

You might also like

Bread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipes