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Dessert

Baked Hasty Pudding

A custard-like pudding made from milk, flour, butter, sugar, eggs, lemon rind, and brandy or orange-flower water, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Baked Hasty Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Reserve ½ cup of milk to mix with the flour.

  2. In a saucepan, bring the remaining milk and salt to a boil.

  3. Stir the flour into the boiling milk quickly.

  4. Keep stirring over low heat for 10 minutes.

  5. Pour the mixture into a bowl and let it cool slightly.

  6. Mix in the butter, sugar, lemon rind, eggs, and brandy or orange-flower water. If using, add the pounded bitter almonds.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 30 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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Thickens the milk into a cooked, spoonable base that holds the pudding together.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the pudding structure and a custard-like texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a softer, more tender crumb.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the pudding and contributes to browning in the oven.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the flour thickens and the eggs set within.

The step that matters

Stir the flour into the boiling milk quickly. Adding flour all at once and stirring vigorously keeps it dispersed, preventing lumps. Starch must then be cooked with continued stirring so it thickens smoothly and loses its raw flour taste.

“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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