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Dessert

Bakewell Pudding

A baked custard-like pudding with preserves, candied citrus, egg yolks, sugar, clarified butter, and flavored with ratafia.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Bakewell 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. Line a shallow tart dish with a 1‑inch layer of mixed preserves and intersperse with candied citron or orange rind.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and gradually add the sifted sugar until well mixed.

  2. Slowly pour in the clarified butter and add the ratafia or preferred flavoring.

  3. Pour the mixture into the tart dish until it is two‑thirds full.

Bake

  1. Bake for nearly 1 hour.

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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Orange + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,301 recipes

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

Orange and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Egg yolks
Bind the filling and set into a rich, custard-like texture as they bake.
Clarified butter
Adds fat for a rich, tender texture and smooth mouthfeel in the filling.
Sifted sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it blend smoothly with the yolks and butter.
Mixed preserves
Forms the fruity base layer and adds sweetness and acidity under the filling.

The step that matters

Pour the filling to two-thirds full. Filling the dish only two-thirds full leaves room for the egg-rich mixture to rise and expand as it bakes, helping prevent overflow and uneven setting.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Orangethe original

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