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Dessert

Viennoise Pudding

A steamed bread pudding with sultanas, mixed peel, sugar, milk, eggs, cream, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Viennoise Pudding

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Viennoise Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the bread, sultanas, mixed peel, castor sugar, lemon rind, loaf sugar, milk, eggs, cream, and sherry together for at least 30 minutes.

  2. Grease a basin and pour the mixture into it.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam the pudding until firm, about 1 to 1.5 hours.

  2. Turn out the pudding and serve with custard, wine, or German 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  5. Bread + sherrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together682 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set it firm when steamed.
Bread
Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up the liquid.
Milk
Moistens the bread and helps the pudding set softly.
Cream
Adds richness and a softer, moister texture.
Sultanas
Add sweetness and chewy fruitiness throughout the pudding.
Sherry
Adds aroma and a little acidity to balance the sweetness.

The step that matters

Steam until firm. Steaming gently sets the egg and milk mixture into a firm pudding. Too little time leaves it loose and wet in the centre, while steaming too hard can make the texture rubbery and dense.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, milk, egg, cream, sherry. 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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