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A Quaking Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with cream, eggs, nutmeg, bread crumbs, and rice flour, cooked in a cloth bag.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

A Quaking Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs and mix them with the cream.

  2. Add the grated nutmeg and a pinch of salt.

  3. Stir in the bread crumbs and the rice flour mixed with a little cream.

Cook and serve

  1. Butter a cloth well and dust it with flour, then pour in the mixture.

  2. Do not tie the cloth too tightly.

  3. Place the cloth in a pot of boiling water and let it cook for 30 minutes.

  4. Serve with a sauce of your choice.

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

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Nutmeg + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Bind the mixture and set it into a firm, sliceable pudding as they cook.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, giving the pudding a tender, custard-like texture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add body, helping the pudding hold its shape.
Rice flour
Thickens the batter and adds structure, supporting the set after cooking.

The step that matters

Do not tie the cloth too tightly. The pudding expands and needs room as it heats and its starches and proteins set. A tight cloth can squeeze the batter and cause a dense texture or split the cloth.

“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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