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Dessert

French and Italian Pudding

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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).

  2. Whisk eggs and cream together in a bowl.

  3. Add sliced rolls until the mixture thickens.

  4. Sweeten with loaf sugar to taste.

  5. If desired, mix in chopped suet.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a baking dish with puff pastry.

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

  3. Sprinkle with sugar and spices.

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

  5. Grate nutmeg on top.

  6. 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 and bind the pudding into a sliceable structure as they cook.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and moisture, giving the custard a smooth, tender texture.
Sliced rolls
Soak up the liquid custard and thicken the mixture before baking.
Apples
Provide moisture and tart flavour that contrasts with the sweet custard.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Suet
Adds fat that enriches the texture and carries flavour, if included.

The step that matters

Pour the egg and cream mixture over the layered ingredients. The custard must be evenly distributed and well thickened by the rolls so it sets rather than pooling. Pouring it gently over the layers lets it soak through, which helps the pudding hold together when baked.

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.

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