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The Good Daughter’s Mincemeat Pudding

A layered bread pudding made with mincemeat and custard, baked until firm.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

The Good Daughter’s Mincemeat Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Spread thin slices of French roll with butter and layer them in a deep tart dish.

  3. Cover the slices with a thick layer of mincemeat.

  4. Add a second layer of buttered roll slices and more mincemeat on top.

Make and bake the pudding

  1. In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, salt, and sugar.

  2. Pour the custard gently over the layered mincemeat and bread.

  3. Let the pudding soak for 1 hour.

  4. Bake gently for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until firm in the center.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
Set the custard so the pudding turns firm when baked.
Milk
Forms the liquid custard that soaks into the bread and keeps it moist.
French roll
Absorbs the custard and provides the bulk and structure of the pudding.
Mincemeat
Adds sweetness and aroma, layered between the bread slices.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and adds to its browning during baking.

The step that matters

Let the pudding soak for 1 hour. The bread must absorb the custard before baking; dry patches stay dense and uneven, while full soaking gives an evenly moist texture once the eggs set.

“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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