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Dessert

English Pudding

A boiled fruit pudding made with brown sugar, butter, bread crumbs, raisins, currants, citron, eggs, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

English Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the brown sugar, butter, bread crumbs, raisins, currants, and citron.

  2. Beat the eggs and add them to the mixture along with the grated nutmeg, stirring until well combined.

Boil and store

  1. Transfer the mixture to a pot and boil for six hours or longer.

  2. Allow to cool and store as you would a fruit cake.

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. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

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

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

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 add structure as they set during cooking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding body and a soft, dense texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, with molasses flavour.
Raisins
Provide chewy texture and concentrated fruit sweetness.

The step that matters

Long boiling. The pudding needs a long, steady boil to cook the eggs and starch through and set the dense mixture. Undercooking leaves it wet and unset in the centre.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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