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Dessert

Prince Albert Pudding

A baked dessert made with bread crumbs, sugar, butter, eggs, lemon, brandy, and preserves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Prince Albert Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

  2. In a large bowl, mix the bread crumbs, sugar, and butter until well combined.

  3. Add the beaten eggs, lemon juice, lemon rind, brandy, and preserves, then mix thoroughly.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until set and golden brown.

  3. Serve warm with wine sauce.

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. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  5. Bread + brandytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together976 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 help it set into a firm, sliceable pudding as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the pudding brown during baking.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and contributes to golden browning in the oven.
Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and structure that the egg and butter mixture sets around.
Brandy
Adds aromatic flavour and a warm, boozy note to the pudding.

The step that matters

Bake until set and golden brown. Baking long enough lets the eggs coagulate so the pudding firms up, while stopping before it dries out keeps it moist. The sugar and butter brown as the surface heats. Pulling it too early leaves a loose, wet centre.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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