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Dessert

Ginger Pudding

A custard pudding made with milk, vanilla, sugar, eggs, gelatin, and preserved ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Ginger Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil 1½ pints of milk with a few drops of essence of vanilla and sugar to taste; then strain.

  2. Beat 6 eggs in a bowl and pour the flavored milk over them.

  3. Place the mixture in a bain‑marie and stir gently over the heat until it thickens.

  4. Dissolve 1½ ounces of gelatin in a little milk and add it to the custard, stirring until nearly cold.

Set and serve

  1. Whip the mixture and fold in 4 ounces of finely chopped preserved ginger.

  2. Pour the mixture into an oiled mold and refrigerate until cold and set.

  3. Turn out the pudding when ready to serve.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Vanilla + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,110 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Vanilla and sugar 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
Thicken the custard on gentle heat and give the pudding its structure.
Gelatine
Sets the cooled custard so the pudding holds its shape when turned out.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and carries the vanilla and sugar.
Preserved ginger
Adds the main flavor and small pieces of texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg custard over heat. Eggs thicken as their proteins set. Gentle heat and constant stirring keep them from curdling into lumps, which would leave the custard grainy before the gelatine is added.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, vanilla, sugar, 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.

More ginger pudding recipes

Steamed 11Preserved 6Plain 3 See all 105 →

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