Skip to main content
Dessert

Rolled Wheat Pudding

A baked pudding made from soaked rolled wheat, milk, currants, sultanas, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Rolled Wheat Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Soak the rolled wheat in water for 1 hour.

  2. In a pot, bring the milk to a boil.

  3. Strain the soaked wheat and add it to the boiling milk.

  4. Cook gently for 30 minutes.

  5. Add the currants and sultanas, and mix well.

Bake

  1. Turn the mixture into a buttered pie dish.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 to 45 minutes.

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. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  4. Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes
  5. Wheat + sugartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,071 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Rolled wheat
Swells as it soaks and cooks, thickening the milk into a soft, porridge-like pudding.
Milk
Provides the liquid that cooks the wheat and gives the pudding its creamy body.
Currants and sultanas
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy bits of fruit throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Cook gently for 30 minutes. Simmering gently keeps the milk from scorching on the bottom of the pot and lets the wheat soften evenly. A hard boil can burn the milk and leave the grains unevenly cooked.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against wheat, milk, sugar. 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.

You might also like

Red Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesWheat MuffinsWheat Muffins48 recipesCurrant Ice CreamCurrant Ice Cream32 recipesWhole Wheat MuffinsWhole Wheat Muffins12 recipes