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Dessert

Cracker and Jam Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with cracker crumbs, jam, eggs, milk, butter, sugar, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cracker and Jam 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 base

  1. Heat milk and cracker crumbs together until scalding.

  2. Remove from heat and let cool.

  3. Cream butter and sugar together.

  4. Add lemon juice and peel.

  5. Stir in beaten egg yolks and cooled cracker mixture.

  6. Fold in beaten egg whites.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a baking dish and spread jam at the bottom.

  2. Pour mixture over jam.

  3. Optionally add a meringue before baking.

  4. Cover and bake for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

  5. Uncover and brown.

Serve

  1. Serve cold, topped with sifted sugar.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard and whites, folded in, lighten the texture and help it set.
Cracker crumbs
Give body to the milk mixture, thickening it and adding a toasty, biscuit-like flavour.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, providing moisture and a soft, tender set.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the butter cream into a smooth mixture.
Jam
Sits at the bottom of the dish, adding fruity sweetness and acidity under the custard.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whites hold air only while whole and gently folded; overmixing deflates them, so the pudding bakes denser and less light.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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