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Dessert

Woodford Pudding

A baked pudding of eggs, sugar, butter, flour, jam, baking soda, sour milk, spices, orange rind, served with an orange rind sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,437 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Woodford Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the pudding

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the eggs, sugar, butter, flour, jam, baking soda dissolved in sour milk, and cinnamon or nutmeg until well combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish and bake slowly until set.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, combine the grated rind and juice of the oranges, sugar, butter, and hot water in a saucepan.

  2. Heat the mixture and add cornstarch to thicken slightly, stirring continuously.

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. Cinnamon + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Bind the batter and help the pudding set into a firm, sliceable body.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor in the pudding and sauce.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that lightens the batter as it bakes.
Jam or preserves
Adds fruit sweetness, moisture, and flavor throughout the pudding.
Cornstarch
Thickens the hot orange sauce as its starch swells in heat.

The step that matters

Baking slowly until set. Eggs set through gentle heat; a hot oven can cause them to curdle and toughen, and the pudding may rise and crack or turn dry before its centre firms.

Swap the orange

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

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

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