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Dessert

Cherry Pudding

A baked pudding made with sweet milk, cherries, and a cherry sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Cherry Pudding

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 ↓

Cherry 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 pudding

  1. In a bowl, combine sweet milk, baking powder, sugar, and beaten egg whites.

  2. Fold in the drained cherries.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. For the sauce, mix egg yolks, butter, flour, and sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Add boiling water and cherry juice, stirring until thickened.

  3. Serve the pudding warm with the sauce.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + cherrytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together851 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Egg whites
Beaten stiff, they trap air and give the pudding a light, airy structure as it sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the pudding rise and become light.
Cherries
Add fruit pieces and tartness that contrast with the sweet, soft batter.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and add richness as they cook with the liquid.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it becomes smooth and clings to the pudding.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich, smooth sauce texture and flavor.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce. Egg yolks and flour must be stirred continuously while the boiling water and cherry juice are added, so the starch swells evenly and the yolks thicken without curdling into lumps.

Swap the cherry

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

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

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