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Dessert

Snowdon Pudding

A steamed pudding made with dried cherries, sponge biscuits, ratifias, cream, eggs, and optional preserved ginger and candied citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Snowdon Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Butter a mould or basin and press the cut side of the cherries against the butter to adhere.

  2. Cut the sponge biscuits into slices and mix with the ratifias.

  3. Sweeten with sugar and add the vanilla or lemon rind and bruised almonds.

Make and cook the pudding

  1. Combine the cream and milk, then strain and pour it hot into the beaten egg yolks and whites.

  2. Gently pour the mixture into the mould and steam or boil softly for 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Serve with a well-made 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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  2. Biscuit + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together422 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

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

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

  4. Vanilla + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,110 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks and whites set the custard, giving the pudding its firm, sliceable body.
Sponge biscuits
Soak up the cream custard and form the soft, absorbent body of the pudding.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the custard a smooth, silky texture.
Dried cherries
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruit sweetness throughout the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the richness of the cream and eggs.

The step that matters

Gently pour the mixture into the mould and steam or boil softly for 1 hour.. Eggs set into a smooth custard only at gentle heat; a hard boil can curdle or pit the texture, so keep the water at a soft simmer.

Swap the ginger

The recipe marks ginger as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (biscuit, cream, sugar, vanilla, egg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against biscuit, cream, sugar, vanilla, 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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