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Dessert

Cambridge Pudding

A baked gooseberry pudding made with flour, eggs, milk, sugar, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cambridge 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).

  2. Grease a pie dish.

  3. Place the gooseberries in the dish and sprinkle sugar over them.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine flour and salt.

  2. Add the eggs and gradually stir in the milk.

  3. Beat the mixture for 5 to 6 minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter over the gooseberries and dust with nutmeg.

  2. Bake for 40 minutes.

  3. Turn out and dust with sugar.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Nutmeg + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Flour
Forms the base structure of the batter that sets as the pudding bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set into a light, custard-like texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter so it spreads over the fruit.
Gooseberries
Provide the tart fruit base that contrasts with the sweet, set batter.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and balances the gooseberries' natural tartness.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture for 5 to 6 minutes. Beating incorporates air and fully hydrates the flour into the eggs and milk, so the batter rises and sets smoothly rather than staying lumpy or dense.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Turmericfits less well

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