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Dessert

Saxon Pudding

A steamed pudding made with almonds, stale cake, cream, pineapple, butter, sugar, eggs, rice flour, and decorated with candied peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Saxon Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scald the cream and pour it over the ground almonds.

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together, then add the egg yolks.

  3. Mix in the cream mixture, rice flour, and pineapple cut into tiny squares.

  4. Whisk the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.

  5. Butter a plain mold and decorate it with candied peel or glace fruits.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into the mold and steam for 30 minutes.

  2. Turn out the pudding and serve with fruit 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. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ground almonds
Provide body and a rich, nutty flavour to the pudding.
Eggs
Bind the batter and, when whipped whites are folded in, lighten its texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender, smooth crumb.
Rice flour
Gives light structure to the pudding while setting during steaming.
Single cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the pudding soft.
Madeira cake
Adds sweetness, body and a soft crumb to the mixture.

The step that matters

Folding in the whisked egg whites. Stiff whites hold air that lightens the mixture. Overmixing or stirring vigorously knocks that air out, leaving a dense pudding.

Swap the pineapple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, cream, butter, sugar, egg, rice, flour):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, cream, butter, sugar, egg, rice, flour. 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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