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Dessert

Squash Pudding

A baked pudding made from steamed squash, apples, bread crumbs, sugar, eggs, nutmeg, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Winter squash and nutmeg share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Squash 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 the squash and apples

  1. Cut the squash into pieces and steam until tender.

  2. Drain and mash the squash through a sieve.

  3. Stew the apples with sugar until soft, then rub through a sieve.

  4. Mix the mashed squash and apple puree well.

Bake

  1. Add the remaining ingredients, beating the eggs well before adding.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 40 minutes.

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. Winter squash + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Nutmeg + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  4. Apple + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Nutmeg + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Winter squash
Provides the bulk and soft, moist body of the pudding.
Apples
Add natural sweetness, moisture and a fruity acidity once stewed and pureed.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set it into a custard-like texture when baked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb excess moisture and help the pudding hold its shape.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and adds to the pudding's flavour and browning.

The step that matters

Beating the eggs well before adding them. Well-beaten eggs distribute evenly through the purees, so the pudding sets smoothly instead of forming pockets or a curdled texture.

Swap the winter squash

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Winter squashthe original

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