Skip to main content
Dessert

Marmalade Pudding

A steamed pudding of grated bread, milk, eggs, sugar and marmalade, cooked in a water bath and served with custard sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Marmalade Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Pour boiling milk over grated bread.

  2. Let it cool until nearly cold.

  3. Beat egg yolks with sugar for 10 minutes.

  4. Add marmalade and mix with the bread and milk.

Make the batter

  1. Whip egg whites to stiff peaks.

  2. Gently fold the egg whites into the mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered melon mold decorated with raisins.

Steam and serve

  1. Place the mold in a pan with boiling water.

  2. Ensure the water reaches the height of the pudding.

  3. Cook for 1 hour and 45 minutes.

  4. Keep the water just below boiling.

  5. Remove from water and let stand for 5 to 10 minutes.

  6. Turn out and serve with custard 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  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 whites whipped to stiff peaks give the pudding a light, airy structure, and yolks enrich it.
Bread
Grated bread soaked in milk forms the body of the pudding and holds moisture as it sets.
Milk
Soaks into the bread, adding moisture and softening the crumb before the eggs set.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the yolks beat to a smooth, thick base.
Marmalade
Adds citrus acidity and bittersweet flavour that cuts through the richness of the eggs and milk.

The step that matters

Keep the steaming water just below boiling. A gentle simmer lets the egg custard set evenly. A hard boil forces water and air through the mixture, leaving it pocked, coarse, or spongy.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

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

You might also like

Bread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipesBrown Bread PuddingBrown Bread Pudding47 recipes