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Dessert

Baked Puddings

A baked rhubarb pudding made with sliced penny roll, bread crumbs, clarified butter, and optional fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rhubarb and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 177 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Baked Puddings

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Assemble

  1. Cut the rhubarb into short lengths and layer them in a deep dish with 1-2 tablespoons of sugar.

  2. Cover with a layer of sliced penny roll.

  3. Add another layer of rhubarb and sugar, followed by more bread.

  4. Top with a deep layer of fine bread crumbs mixed with 1 tablespoon of sugar.

  5. Pour a little clarified butter over the crumbs.

Bake

  1. Bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) for 30-40 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. Rhubarb + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together177 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Rhubarb + appletop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together162 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Bread + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Rhubarb stalks
Provides the tart fruit that forms the body of the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the tart rhubarb and helps draw out its juices as it bakes.
Penny roll
Soaks up the rhubarb juices, giving the layers a softer, moister texture.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping that seals in the moisture beneath.
Clarified butter
Adds fat that helps the crumb topping brown and crisp in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake in a brisk oven. A hot oven browns the crumb topping and cooks the fruit before the bread turns soggy. Too low a temperature lets the juices pool and the topping steam instead of crisp.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rhubarb, sugar, butter, bread, nutmeg. 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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