Skip to main content
Dessert

Cracker Pudding

A baked pudding made with crackers, raisins, eggs, milk, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cracker 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.

Assemble

  1. In a quart dish, layer common crackers.

  2. Add a layer of raisins on top of the crackers.

  3. Repeat layers until the dish is full.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Add the milk and vanilla extract to the beaten eggs and mix well.

  3. Pour the egg mixture over the layered pudding.

Bake and serve

  1. Cook in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for one hour.

  2. Optionally, add sugar or serve with sauce.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Raisin + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together782 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Common crackers
Form the bulk of the pudding and soak up the custard to give it body.
Eggs
Bind the milk and set as the custard bakes, giving the pudding its firm structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and keeps the pudding moist as it bakes.
Raisins
Add pockets of concentrated sweetness and chew between the cracker layers.

The step that matters

Pour the egg mixture over the layered pudding. The custard must soak down through every layer so the crackers hydrate evenly. Pouring too quickly or unevenly leaves dry crackers on top or a soggy base, and the egg proteins set only where the custard reaches.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, vanilla, sugar, sauce):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, vanilla, sugar, sauce. 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.

More cracker pudding recipes

Apple 4Boston 4Baked 3Soda 3 See all 77 →

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes