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Dessert

New England Cracker Pudding

A pudding made from soda crackers, eggs, milk, sugar, raisins, and nutmeg, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

New England Cracker Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Break the soda crackers into small pieces.

  2. Soak the crackers in the milk for 1 hour.

Make the pudding

  1. Beat the eggs lightly.

  2. Add the sugar and raisins to the eggs.

  3. Combine the egg mixture with the soaked crackers.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until a knife inserted comes out clean.

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. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  3. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Soda crackers
Soak up the milk and form the body of the pudding as they soften.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set during baking to give the pudding its firm custard texture.
Milk
Softens the crackers and provides the liquid that bakes into a custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning on the baked surface.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Bake until a knife comes out clean. Eggs set as they heat, so underbaking leaves the pudding loose and wet in the centre, while overbaking can make it dry and rubbery. A knife inserted in the centre coming out clean shows the custard has set.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

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