Skip to main content
Dessert

French and Italian Pudding

A baked fruit pudding made with apples, raisins, dates, candied orange peel, sliced rolls, suet, and a custard of eggs and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Raisin and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

French and Italian 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).

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, whisk together the eggs and cream.

  2. Add sliced rolls until the mixture thickens.

  3. Sweeten with loaf sugar to taste.

  4. If desired, mix in the chopped suet.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a baking dish with puff pastry.

  2. Layer the bottom with apples, raisins, dates, candied orange-peel, sugar, and spices.

  3. Pour the egg and cream mixture over the layered ingredients.

  4. Grate nutmeg on top.

  5. Bake until golden brown.

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. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  2. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  3. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  5. Dates + orangetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together151 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, holding the filling together.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture to the custard.
Sliced rolls
Soak up the liquid so the custard thickens before baking.
Apples
Provide moisture and tart flavour that contrasts the sweetness.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture.

The step that matters

Add sliced rolls until the mixture thickens. Bread soaks up the egg and cream mixture and swells, so the custard sets evenly. Adding too little leaves the filling runny; adding too much makes it dense and dry.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, sugar, raisin, dates, orange, nutmeg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, sugar, raisin, dates, orange, nutmeg. 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.

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesApple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipes