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Dessert

Biscuit Pudding

A baked custard-like pudding made with eggs, sugar, ground rice or flour, baking powder, vanilla, and served with wine or jam sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Biscuit Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Beat the eggs and caster sugar until thick and creamy.

  2. Stir in the ground rice, baking powder, and a few drops of vanilla.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter small dariole molds or little tins and fill them three-quarters full with the mixture.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400 °F (200 °C) for 20 minutes.

  3. Turn out and serve with wine or jam 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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  2. Rice + vanillatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,352 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Vanilla + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Sugar and vanilla 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

Eggs
Beaten with sugar, they trap air and give the puddings a light, set structure.
Ground rice or flour
Provides the body that holds the puddings together as they set.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven, helping the puddings rise and stay light.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps it beat into a thick, creamy foam.

The step that matters

Beating the eggs and sugar until thick and creamy. Air whipped into the eggs and sugar is what lifts the batter in the oven. If it is beaten too little, the puddings bake up dense and flat.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Lemonfits less well
  4. Raisinfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, rice, butter. 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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