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Dessert

A Marrow Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with cream, Naples biscuits, eggs, marrow, brandy, sherry, orange flower water, currants, candied fruits, baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,209 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

A Marrow Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the custard

  1. Combine cream or milk and Naples biscuit in a stewpan over medium heat and bring to a boil.

  2. Beat egg yolks and whites until fine, then mix in sugar, chopped marrow, brandy, sherry, and orange flower water.

  3. Combine the egg mixture with the boiled cream and biscuit, stirring until thick. Set aside to cool.

Bake and serve

  1. Line a dish with puff paste, pour in the mixture, and sprinkle with washed currants, sliced marrow, and candied fruits.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 45 minutes.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Brandy + sherrytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Sherry + curranttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Sherry + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together823 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks and whites thicken the custard as they set when heated, giving the pudding its body.
Cream or milk
Provides the liquid base and richness that the biscuit soaks up and the eggs set into.
Naples biscuit
Soaks up the liquid and gives the pudding a soft, bready structure.
Marrow
Adds richness and fat, giving the pudding a rich, savoury depth.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the custard brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg mixture into the boiled cream. If the hot cream is added too quickly or the mixture is overheated, the eggs can scramble instead of thickening smoothly. Stir steadily and keep the custard gentle while it thickens.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, biscuit, egg, sugar, brandy, sherry, orange):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, biscuit, egg, sugar, brandy, sherry, orange. 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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