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Dessert

Stale Cake Pudding

A steamed pudding made from stale cake crumbs, cookies, egg, milk, baking soda, cream of tartar, molasses, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,399 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stale Cake Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the stale cake and cookies using a meat chopper to get 2 cups of crumbs.

  2. Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam the mixture for 2½ hours.

  2. Slice and serve with stiffly beaten whipped cream.

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 + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. Cream + molassestop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,408 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Stale cake and cookies
Provides the crumb base and bulk that gives the pudding its body.
Egg
Binds the crumbs together and helps the pudding set firm when steamed.
Milk
Adds moisture that softens the crumbs and keeps the pudding tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid to release gas that lightens the pudding as it steams.
Cream of tartar
Supplies the acid that activates the baking soda, aiding rise and a lighter texture.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, depth of flavour and a dark colour, and extra moisture.

The step that matters

Steam the mixture for 2½ hours. Gentle steam heats the batter evenly and sets it without a crust. The leavening gas expands during steaming, so the full time is needed for the crumb to set rather than turn gummy.

“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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