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Dessert

Bakewell Pudding

A baked dessert made with pastry, fruit preserves, eggs, sugar, and melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Fruit preserve and sugar share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 37 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Bakewell 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.

Prepare

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

  2. Line a baking dish with pastry.

  3. Spread a layer of acid preserves over the pastry.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs, then mix in the sugar and melted butter.

  2. Pour the egg mixture over the preserves.

Bake

  1. Bake until set and golden, without a top crust.

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. Fruit preserve + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together37 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Fruit preserve + buttertop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together29 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Pastry
Forms a crisp base that holds the filling while the dish bakes.
Acid preserves
Add fruit sweetness and tartness that contrast with the rich custard.
Eggs
Set the filling into a custard as they cook, giving it structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the custard brown as it bakes.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the filling a tender texture.

The step that matters

Bake until set and golden, without a top crust. Egg custard sets through gentle heat; overbaking makes it curdle, weep and turn rubbery. Pull it when the centre just barely wobbles, since it firms as it cools.

“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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