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Marrow Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with milk, marrow, spices, sponge cake, and wine or brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,746 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Marrow 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

  1. Boil the milk with cinnamon and lemon peel.

  2. Add a small pinch of salt, chopped beef marrow, citron, orange peel, grated nutmeg, crumbled sponge cake, sugar, and wine or brandy.

Make and bake

  1. Mix in the eggs.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

  3. Alternatively, omit the eggs and fill with plain custard before baking.

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. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Milk + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  3. Orange + winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,046 recipes

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

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Milk + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef marrow
Adds fat and richness, giving the pudding a soft, moist texture.
Eggs
Set as they heat, giving the pudding its firm, custard-like structure.
Sponge cake
Soaks up the warm liquid and gives the pudding body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that carries the custard and keeps the pudding moist.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the marrow and eggs.
Wine or brandy
Adds aroma and a distinct flavour to the pudding.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Egg proteins set as the pudding heats. Overbaking makes the texture grainy and can force out liquid, so check for a firm set rather than baking for a fixed time.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, beef, nutmeg, sugar, wine, egg. 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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