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Dessert

Strawberry Pudding

A steamed pudding made with sliced sponge cake, macaroons, strawberry juice, cream, sugar, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Strawberry Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fill a 3‑pint mold or pail two‑thirds full with alternate layers of sliced sponge cake and macaroons.

  2. In a bowl, combine 1 pint of strawberry juice, 1 cup of cream, ½ cup of sugar, and ¼ teaspoon of coarse sea salt.

  3. Pour the mixture over the cake layers.

Steam and serve

  1. Cover the mold tightly and steam for 2 hours.

  2. Serve hot with whipped cream flavored with a little sherry.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Strawberry + creamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,525 recipes

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

  3. Strawberry + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,060 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Sliced sponge cake
Forms the bulk of the pudding and soaks up the liquid to hold its shape.
Macaroons
Add chewy texture and almond sweetness as they soften in the custard liquid.
Strawberry juice
Provides the main liquid and fruity flavor, moistening the cake layers as they steam.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the set pudding a softer, silkier texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and balances the tartness of the strawberry juice.

The step that matters

Cover the mold tightly while steaming. A loose cover lets steam escape and the surface can dry out or the pudding can cook unevenly. A tight seal keeps moisture in so the cake soaks up the liquid and the pudding sets evenly.

Swap the strawberry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberrythe original
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Raisinfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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