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Dessert

Boiled Puddings

A steamed pudding made from milk, sugar, bread crumbs, eggs, butter, brandy, and optional currants or candied orange peel.

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

Boiled Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a large bowl, combine the milk, sugar, salt, bread crumbs, and eggs.

  2. Add the butter, brandy, and grated lemon rind or nutmeg to the mixture.

  3. If desired, fold in the currants and candied orange peel.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam the pudding for 1 hour and 10 minutes.

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. Brandy + curranttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  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
Bind the mixture and set into a firm, custardy texture when steamed.
Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and structure that soak up the milk and eggs.
Milk
Adds moisture and, with the eggs, forms the soft custard base.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a tender crumb and mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the eggs and brandy.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, bread, egg, nutmeg, butter, brandy):

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

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