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Dessert

A Black-cap Pudding

A pudding made with flour, milk, butter, eggs, and currants, baked in a water bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

A Black-cap Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Gradually rub the flour into the milk until smooth.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Simmer over low heat until it thickens.

  4. Stir in the butter until melted.

  5. Let the mixture cool.

  6. Beat and strain the egg yolks.

  7. Add the yolks to the mixture.

Assemble and boil

  1. Butter a basin or mold.

  2. Place the currants at the bottom.

  3. Pour the batter into the mold.

  4. Cover tightly.

  5. Plunge into boiling water.

  6. Ensure the currants are facing down to form the black cap.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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 smooth, set custard base.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a custard.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel to the custard.
Eggs
Enrich the custard and help it set as it cooks.
Currants
Form the dark cap on the pudding's surface when inverted.

The step that matters

Simmer the custard until it thickens. Flour starch needs to be cooked over low heat to swell and thicken the milk fully. Undercooked starch leaves a raw, pasty taste and a loose texture that will not hold its shape in the mold.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, butter, 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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