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Dessert

Spring Fruit, or Rhubarb Pudding

A sweet rhubarb pudding made with lemon, cinnamon, cloves, sugar, nutmeg, butter, eggs, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spring Fruit, or Rhubarb Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Clean the rhubarb and place it in a saucepan with the peel of a lemon, cinnamon, cloves, and enough sugar to sweeten.

  2. Cook over heat until it reduces to a marmalade consistency, then strain through a fine sieve.

Assemble and bake

  1. Add the additional lemon peel, grated nutmeg, butter, egg yolks, and egg white; mix well.

  2. Line a pie dish with puff pastry, pour in the mixture, and bake for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Rhubarb + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together279 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Rhubarb
Forms the main body of the filling and provides the tart flavor once cooked down.
Egg yolks
Enrich the filling and help it set into a custard-like texture when baked.
Egg white
Adds structure and helps the filling set as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the rhubarb and balances its natural tartness.

The step that matters

Reducing the rhubarb to a marmalade consistency. The rhubarb must cook down until thick so the filling does not stay watery. Straining it through a fine sieve removes fibers and leaves a smooth base for the eggs to set into.

Swap the rhubarb

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, cinnamon, clove, sugar, nutmeg, butter, egg):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Rhubarbthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, cinnamon, clove, sugar, nutmeg, butter, 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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