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Dessert

Neio College Puddings

A sweet pudding made from bread crumbs, suet, currants, citrus, sugar, nutmeg, eggs, butter, and brandy.

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 ↓

Neio College Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Grate the bread crumbs.

  2. Mix the grated crumbs with suet, currants, citron, orange, sugar, nutmeg, and beaten eggs.

  3. Shape the mixture into goose-egg sized balls.

Fry the balls

  1. Melt butter in a frying pan over medium heat.

  2. Gently stew the balls in the hot butter.

  3. Turn the balls two or three times until golden brown.

Finish

  1. Mix brandy into the batter before serving.

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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  5. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Form the body of the mixture and help the balls hold their shape.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the balls moist and rich as they cook.
Eggs
Bind the crumbs and dried fruit together so the balls set when heated.
Butter
Conducts heat in the pan and browns the outside of the balls.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the outside brown during frying.
Brandy
Adds a warm, aromatic flavour to the mixture.

The step that matters

Turn the balls gently over medium heat. Medium heat lets the outside turn golden while the centre cooks through. Too much heat browns the surface too fast and can burn the butter and sugar before the inside sets. Handling gently keeps the balls from breaking apart.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, currant, sugar, nutmeg, egg, 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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