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Dessert

Quaking Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with cream, eggs, flour, nutmeg, sugar, and served with butter and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Quaking Pudding

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Quaking Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the custard

  1. Scald the cream and let it cool slightly.

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the flour, nutmeg, and sugar.

  3. Combine the egg mixture with the cream.

Cook and serve

  1. Tie the mixture tightly in a buttered cloth.

  2. Boil for 1 hour.

  3. Carefully turn out the pudding and serve with melted butter, a little wine, and sugar.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Eggs
Set the custard and give the pudding its body as they cook.
Cream
Provides richness and moisture, giving the pudding a soft, tender texture.
Flour
Thickens the custard so it holds its shape when boiled.

The step that matters

Tie the cloth tightly. A loose cloth lets water seep into the mixture while it boils, making the pudding watery and loose. A snug wrap keeps the custard compact so it holds together when turned out.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

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

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