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Cracker Pudding

A pudding made by boiling pounded crackers with milk, eggs, salt, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,685 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cracker Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine the pounded crackers and milk.

  2. Add the beaten eggs, salt, and nutmeg, and mix well.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the mixture in a cloth and tie it loosely.

  2. Boil in water for 1 hour.

  3. Serve with cold sauce.

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Crackers
Crumbs soak up the milk and give the pudding its body as they soften.
Eggs
Coagulate as they heat, setting the pudding and holding it together.
Milk
Moistens the crackers and keeps the pudding tender while it cooks.

The step that matters

Tying the cloth loosely. The pudding swells and needs room as it cooks in boiling water. Tying it too tightly can crush the mixture and stop it from expanding evenly, leaving a dense texture.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Dillfits less well
  4. Parsleyfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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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