Skip to main content
Dessert

Royal Pudding

A sago pudding with butter, sugar, eggs, wine, raspberry jam, and meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Royal 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.

Make the custard

  1. In a double boiler, heat the milk until just before boiling.

  2. Stir in the sago and cook until thickened, about 30 minutes, stirring frequently.

  3. Add the butter, sugar, and salt; let cool.

  4. Once cool, mix in the beaten egg yolks and wine.

Bake and top

  1. Pour into a buttered pudding dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

  2. Allow to cool, then spread the raspberry jam on top.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then mix in 4 tablespoons powdered sugar.

  4. Spread the meringue over the pudding and brown quickly before serving.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + raspberrytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,014 recipes

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

  3. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Raspberry + winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together303 recipes

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

  5. Butter + raspberrytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,308 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sago
Thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the pudding its body.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and set the custard; whites whip into the meringue topping.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the custard.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the sago thickens into a custard.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the custard and adds softness to its texture.

The step that matters

Browning the meringue. Egg white meringue can weep or turn tough if overbaked, and it browns quickly under high heat. Watch it closely so the top colours without the layer below overcooking.

Swap the raspberry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Raspberrythe original

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

You might also like

Raspberry JamRaspberry Jam150 recipesRaspberry CreamRaspberry Cream82 recipesRaspberry IceRaspberry Ice29 recipesRaspberry Ice CreamRaspberry Ice Cream24 recipes