Why it works: Biscuit and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,874 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Biscuit Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pulp
Soak the biscuits in cold water until soft.
Boil the soaked biscuits in enough water to allow them to be beaten into a smooth pulp.
Pour the pulp into a basin.
Let the pulp cool.
Make the pudding
Beat the cooled pulp with eggs and sugar.
Boil the mixture for five minutes.
Serve
Let it cool before serving.
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.
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Biscuit + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,874 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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Biscuit + milktop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,332 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
- Biscuits
- Their starch thickens as they cook and soften, forming the body of the pudding.
- Eggs
- They set when heated, binding the pudding and giving it a firmer texture.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness to balance the plain flavour of the biscuits and milk.
The step that matters
Boil the mixture for five minutes. Egg proteins set when heated, so boiling a mixture containing eggs can make it grainy or curdled. Keeping the mixture moving and watching it closely helps it stay smooth as it thickens.
“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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