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Dessert

Poppy-seed Pudding

A baked pudding made with poppy seeds, eggs, sugar, butter, wheatmeal, orange water, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Poppy-seed 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.

Prepare the seed

  1. Scald the poppy seed with boiling water and drain.

  2. Crush the seed in a mortar, adding a little milk.

Make the batter

  1. Once crushed fine, mix in the beaten egg yolks, sugar, wheatmeal, butter, orange water, and the remaining milk.

  2. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold into the mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered pie dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 hours.

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

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

  2. Orange + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Poppy seed
Forms the main body and nutty, earthy flavor of the pudding.
Eggs
Egg whites add air and lift, while yolks help bind and set the custard.
Wheatmeal
Provides starch and structure so the pudding holds its shape when baked.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavor and a softer, more tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps give it a golden surface when baked.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiff whites hold the air that lifts the mixture while baking. Stirring them in vigorously knocks out that air, leaving a dense pudding instead of a light, risen one.

Swap the orange

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

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

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