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Dessert

Madeira Pudding

A sweet pudding made with suet, bread crumbs, sugar, flour, eggs, and sherry, boiled for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Madeira Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the suet, bread crumbs, sugar, and flour together until well combined.

  2. Add the eggs and sherry to the mixture to create a thick batter.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the batter for 3½ hours.

  2. Serve with wine 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. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Bread + sherrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together682 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sherrytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,643 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Suet
Adds richness and a moist, tender texture as it melts during cooking.
Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and body that hold the pudding together.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm when cooked.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture while contributing to the pudding's flavour.
Flour
Adds structure, helping the batter hold its shape as it cooks.
Sherry
Adds moisture and a distinctive aromatic, wine-based flavour.

The step that matters

Boil the batter for 3½ hours. Long, steady cooking sets the eggs and starches fully and softens the suet. Letting the water boil too hard or run dry can cause uneven texture or scorching, so the pan needs regular topping up with water.

“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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