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Dessert

Little Marie Puddings

A small baked pudding made with eggs, flour, butter, sugar, baking powder, cherries, rum syrup, and apricot glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Little Marie Puddings

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter until creamy, then add the sugar.

  2. Incorporate the eggs, followed by the flour, cherries, and baking powder.

  3. Pour the mixture into small greased cups.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake for 20 minutes.

  2. Turn out the puddings, pour rum syrup over them, and cover with apricot glaze.

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 + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Rum + apricottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together149 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + rumtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,007 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Flour
Forms the structure of the sponge as the batter sets.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for a tender crumb.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps create a light texture when creamed with butter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the puddings rise and become light.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter and sugar. Beating the butter until creamy traps air that expands in the oven. Under-beaten butter gives dense puddings, so the mixture should look pale and fluffy before the eggs go in.

Swap the apricot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, butter, sugar, rum, syrup):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Bananafits about as well
  4. Apricotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, butter, sugar, rum, syrup. 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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