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Dessert

Rolled Pudding

A boiled rolled pudding made with flour, currants or raisins, apples, and served with melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Rolled Pudding

Why it works: Currant and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,918 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Rolled Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the dough

  1. Make a good dough by mixing flour with water until smooth.

  2. Roll out the dough on a floured surface.

Fill and wrap

  1. Evenly cover the dough with currants, raisins, and chopped apples.

  2. Roll the dough up tightly and tie it in a cloth.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil the wrapped pudding in water for about 1 hour.

  2. Serve by cutting into pieces and drizzling with melted butter.

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. Currant + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Currant + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Flour + appletop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,140 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

All-purpose flour
Forms the dough's structure, which holds the filling and sets as it cooks.
Currants or chopped raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture to the filling.
Chopped apples
Add moisture and a fruity tartness to the filling.

The step that matters

Roll the dough up tightly and tie it in a cloth. A loose roll can let water seep into the filling and leave gaps or a soggy interior. A snug wrap keeps the filling in place and helps the pudding hold its shape while boiling.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, apple, butter):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, apple, butter. 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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