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Dessert

Sweet Manchester Pudding

A sweet pudding made with bread crumbs, eggs, sugar, milk, butter, jam, and served with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

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

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Grease a baking dish with butter.

Make and assemble

  1. In a bowl, mix the bread crumbs, eggs, sugar, and milk until well combined.

  2. Layer the bread crumb mixture and jam in the dish, finishing with a layer of bread crumbs.

  3. Pour the custard mixture over the top.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for about 30-40 minutes until set and golden.

  2. Serve warm with 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard and bind the bread crumbs into a soft pudding.
Milk
Moistens the bread crumbs and forms the custard that bakes into a soft texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown as it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Form the soft body of the pudding and soak up the custard.
Butter
Adds richness and keeps the dish from sticking when greased.

The step that matters

Bake until set and golden. Pulling the pudding too early leaves the egg-based custard runny in the centre. Baking until it is just set and golden gives a firm but tender texture without overcooking the eggs and making them rubbery.

“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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