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Dessert

Troy Pudding

A simple pudding made by mixing butter and powdered sugar, then boiling the mixture for three hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Butter and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Troy Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the butter and powdered sugar together.

  2. Place the mixture in a cloth or mold.

  3. Boil for three hours.

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 + sugartop 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

Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the pudding a smooth, rich texture as it sets.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves easily into the butter, giving a fine, even texture.

The step that matters

Boil for three hours. Boiling must stay steady for the full three hours, because a weak simmer or drop in water level can leave the pudding under-set or uneven. Keep the cloth or mold submerged.

“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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