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Dessert

Brandy Pudding

A steamed pudding made with brandy, sponge biscuits, powdered sugar, dried cherries, candied orange peel, egg yolks, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Brandy Pudding

Why it works: Biscuit and orange work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 371 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Brandy Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pour the brandy over the sponge biscuits.

  2. Beat in the powdered sugar, dried cherries, candied orange peel, and egg yolks.

  3. Fold in the whisked egg whites until frothy.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered mold.

  2. Steam for 1 hour.

  3. Serve with custard or burnt cream 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Biscuit + orangetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together371 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Brandy + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,706 recipes

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

  3. Biscuit + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Brandy + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  5. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Brandy and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Egg yolks
Enriches the batter and adds richness and a tender, custard-like texture.
Egg whites
Whisked and folded in to lighten the mixture and give the pudding a airy structure.
Sponge biscuits
Soak up the brandy and form the body of the pudding as they steam.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves easily into the batter, adding sweetness.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when whisked to a foam, and folding gently keeps that air in. Stirring vigorously deflates the foam, leaving a denser pudding.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, biscuit, sugar, 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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