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Dessert

Rusk Pudding

A sweet pudding made with crushed rusks, milk, sugar, butter, eggs, and raspberry jelly, baked in a water bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Rusk Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Crush the rusks finely with a rolling pin.

  2. In a saucepan, heat the milk, sugar, and salt until boiling. Remove from heat and stir in the butter.

  3. In a large bowl, beat the egg yolks and raspberry jelly together. Slowly stir in the hot milk mixture.

Assemble and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites with 1 tablespoon of sugar until stiff, then fold them into the mixture.

  2. Add the crushed rusk and mix well.

  3. Place the pudding pan in a larger pan filled with boiling water and bake for 30 minutes.

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

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

  2. Milk + raspberrytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,014 recipes

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

  3. Butter + raspberrytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,308 recipes

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 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

Rusks
Provide the bread-like base that soaks up the custard and sets into a soft, spoonable body.
Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, and the whites whipped into the mixture add lightness.
Milk
Forms the liquid custard that softens the crumbs and gives a creamy texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel to the pudding.
Raspberry jelly
Adds fruity sweetness and flavour and some moisture to the custard.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that gives lightness. Overmixing or deflating them while folding makes the pudding dense, so fold gently just until combined.

Swap the raspberry

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

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

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