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Dessert

Oxford Pudding

A small currant biscuit pudding cooked by frying in butter and served with white wine sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Biscuit and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 368 recipes. Both carry maltol, which smells caramel, sweet. The science ↓

Oxford Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. In a bowl, mix the grated biscuit, currants, suet, sugar, and nutmeg together.

  2. Add the egg yolks and combine until well mixed.

  3. Form the mixture into small balls.

Fry and serve

  1. In a skillet, heat fresh butter and fry the balls until they are a light color.

  2. Serve the pudding with white wine 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. Biscuit + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together368 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

  2. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Currant + white winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together276 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Grated biscuit
Provides the bulk of the pudding and absorbs moisture from the other ingredients.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture together so it holds its shape when formed into balls.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy texture through the mixture.
Fresh butter
Fries the balls, promoting browning and a golden surface.

The step that matters

Frying the balls until a light color. Frying over moderate heat sets the outside while the inside cooks through. Too much heat browns the surface before the center is heated, and too little leaves the balls greasy and pale.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (biscuit, sugar, nutmeg, egg, butter, white wine, sauce):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against biscuit, sugar, nutmeg, egg, butter, white wine, 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.

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