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Dessert

Alma Pudding

A baked pudding made with bread crumbs, sago, suet, sugar, raisins, apricot jam, rum, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and rum work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 149 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Alma Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine bread crumbs, sago, suet, sugar, sultana raisins, and apricot jam.

  2. Mix in the rum and beaten eggs until well combined.

Fill and bake

  1. Butter little cups or tins and place slices of citron at the bottom.

  2. Fill the cups three-quarters full with the mixture.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 45 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with a sweet 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. Apricot + rumtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together149 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

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

  5. Bread + apricottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together178 recipes

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

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 help set the puddings as they bake.
Suet
Adds fat and richness, keeping the puddings moist as they cook.
Fine white bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and structure that holds the pudding together.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown lightly during baking.
Sago
Adds body and a slight chewiness to the pudding.

The step that matters

Fill the cups three-quarters full. Leaving room above the mixture gives the pudding space to rise as it bakes. Overfilling can cause it to spill over or bake unevenly.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, apricot, rum, 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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