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Dessert

New College Puddings

A biscuit-based pudding with suet, currants, candied peel, sugar, and brandy, fried and dusted with sifted sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

New College Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine the crumbled Naples biscuits, bread crumbs, chopped suet, currants, candied peel, grated sugar, nutmeg or mace, and brandy.

  2. Mix in the yolks of the eggs to form a stiff paste.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into balls, each about 1 ounce.

  2. Fry the balls in butter or lard until they are a fine pale brown.

Serve

  1. Sprinkle with sifted sugar and serve with 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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Biscuit + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together319 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks bind the mixture into a stiff paste that holds its shape when fried.
Bread crumbs
Add body to the mixture, helping it hold together as a paste.
Beef suet
Adds richness and fat, keeping the puddings moist and tender inside.
Naples biscuits
Provide the crumb base and a light, sweet biscuit flavour.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the puddings.
Butter or lard
Fat for frying, promoting browning on the outside of the balls.

The step that matters

Fry until fine pale brown. Frying over moderate heat browns the outside through the Maillard reaction while the fat keeps the centre moist. Too much heat scorches the surface before the inside warms through.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (biscuit, bread, beef, sugar, nutmeg, brandy, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against biscuit, bread, beef, sugar, nutmeg, brandy, egg. 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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