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Dessert

Tea Cup Pudding

A sweet bread pudding with raisins, apples, suet, eggs, cream, and brandy, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Tea Cup 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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Mix and bake

  1. In a large bowl, combine grated bread, raisins, chopped apples, and suet.

  2. Add the beaten eggs, cream, and brandy and mix well.

  3. Season with spice and sugar to taste.

  4. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.

  5. Bake until set.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Apple + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

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

  3. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

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

  4. Raisin + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

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

  5. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set into a firm, sliceable pudding as they cook.
Grated bread
Provides body and soaks up the liquids to give the pudding a soft crumb.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich in texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving a softer, more tender set.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy pockets throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs set as their proteins coagulate with heat. Underbaking leaves a wet, loose centre, while overbaking makes the pudding dry and rubbery. Check that the centre is firm rather than liquid.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, raisin, egg, cream, brandy, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, raisin, egg, cream, brandy, sugar. 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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