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Dessert

Dresden Pudding

A baked pudding made with flour, sugar, crumbled brown bread, butter, cocoa, cinnamon, lemon rind, milk, Curacao, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Dresden 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour, sugar, crumbled brown bread, cocoa, ground cinnamon, and lemon rind.

  3. In another bowl, melt the butter and then add the milk and Curacao.

  4. Beat the eggs and combine with the milk mixture.

  5. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix well.

Bake

  1. Transfer the mixture to a greased baking dish.

  2. Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until set.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard-like batter as they cook, giving the pudding its structure.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture to the pudding.
Flour
Provides structure, holding the crumbs and batter together as the pudding sets.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to browning on the surface.
Brown bread
Soaks up the milk and egg mixture, giving the pudding its body.

The step that matters

Baking until set. Eggs set as they heat, so underbaking leaves the pudding loose in the centre while overbaking can make it dry and rubbery. Checking for a firm set near the end of the time keeps the texture even.

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, bread, butter, cinnamon, lemon, milk):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, bread, butter, cinnamon, lemon, milk. 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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