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Dessert

Jelly Puddings

A baked dessert made from stale biscuit crumbs, milk, eggs, baking soda, and sweet jelly, served warm with sweetened cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Biscuit and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,235 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓

Jelly 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.

Make the batter

  1. Scald the milk and pour it over the crumbs.

  2. Beat the mixture until half cold.

  3. Stir in the beaten yolks.

  4. Stir in the egg whites.

  5. Stir in the baking soda.

  6. Fill large cups half full with the batter.

Bake and fill

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

  2. Turn out the puddings quickly.

  3. Make an incision in the side of each.

  4. Pull the slit partly open.

  5. Fill with a generous spoonful of the conserve.

  6. Pinch the edges to close.

  7. Serve warm with sweetened cream.

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. Biscuit + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  2. Biscuit + milktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,332 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Biscuit or bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and structure that the milk and eggs set into a soft pudding.
Milk
Softens the crumbs and adds moisture to the batter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during baking to give the pudding its body.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to produce gas that lightens the pudding as it bakes.
Jelly, jam, or marmalade
Adds sweetness and fruity flavor in the filling.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture until half cold. The batter must cool before the eggs are stirred in, so the yolks and whites do not start to cook and curdle, which would leave the pudding lumpy and uneven.

“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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