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Dessert

English Biscuit Pudding

A baked pudding made from cracker crumbs, suet, eggs, milk, sugar, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,759 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓

English Biscuit 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 batter

  1. Soak the cracker crumbs in the milk until stiff.

  2. Stir in the beaten egg yolks and beat for three minutes.

  3. Add the suet, salt, and baking soda.

  4. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites with long, horizontal sweeps of the spoon.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake covered at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes until browned.

  2. Serve hot with brandy 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. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  2. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Beef + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 enrich and bind the batter, while whites folded in add lightness and help it rise.
Rolled cracker crumbs
Absorb the milk and swell to form the pudding's soft, stiff body.
Powdered beef suet
Adds richness and fat, giving the pudding a tender, moist texture.
Milk
Softens the crumbs and provides moisture that sets into a custard-like crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown during baking.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Beaten whites trap air that gives lift; stirring them vigorously knocks out that air and leaves a dense pudding. Gentle, sweeping folds keep the batter light.

“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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