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Dessert

Fruit Pudding, No. 1

A steamed dessert made with milk, bread crumbs, sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla, and fruit jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and strawberry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,385 recipes. Both carry p-vinylguaiacol, which smells spicy, fruity. The science ↓

Fruit Pudding, No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Pour boiling milk over bread crumbs.

  2. Add sugar, butter, eggs, and vanilla extract, then mix well.

Steam

  1. Put jam into a mold, then pour in the batter.

  2. Cover the mold and steam for 2 hours, then serve.

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. Vanilla + strawberrytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,385 recipes

    Shared aroma: p-vinylguaiacol (spicy, fruity).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Form the body of the pudding and soak up the hot milk to become soft.
Eggs
Set during steaming to bind the pudding into a tender, sliceable structure.
Milk
Softens the bread crumbs and adds moisture to the batter.
Jam
Adds fruit flavor and sweetness, and sits under the batter as a layer.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and balances the eggs and milk.

The step that matters

Steam the covered mold for the full 2 hours. Steam keeps the heat gentle and the moisture high, so the eggs set evenly without drying out. Cutting the steaming short can leave the centre wet and loose, while the cover traps steam so the top cooks through.

Swap the strawberry

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Peachfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Strawberrythe original

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

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