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Dessert

Brandi Pudding

A layered pudding made with raisins, French roll, ratafia or macaroons, brandy, eggs, milk or cream, nutmeg, and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Brandi Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Layer the mold

  1. Line a mold with chopped raisins or dried cherries.

  2. Add slices of French roll.

  3. Add layers of ratafia or macaroons.

  4. Continue layering fruit, rolls, and cakes until the mold is full.

  5. Sprinkle 2 glasses of brandy over the layers.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the yolks and whites of 4 eggs.

  2. Mix the beaten eggs with 1 pint of lightly sweetened milk or cream, grated nutmeg, and lemon rind.

  3. Pour the mixture over the layered ingredients.

  4. Let the mixture soak.

Boil and serve

  1. Flour a cloth.

  2. Tie the cloth over the mold.

  3. Boil for 1 hour, keeping the mold upright.

  4. Serve with pudding 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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  2. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  3. Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

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

  4. Raisin + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Raisin + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the custard so the layers set into a firm, sliceable pudding.
Milk or cream
Moistens the bread and cakes and forms the body of the custard.
French roll
Soaks up the custard and brandy to form the pudding's soft structure.
Ratafia or macaroons
Absorb liquid and add a concentrated almond-like sweetness and aroma.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour that penetrates the soaked layers.

The step that matters

Let the mixture soak. The bread and cakes need time to absorb the custard fully; if they stay dry in places, the pudding will set unevenly and taste patchy.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, brandy, egg, milk, nutmeg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Currantfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, brandy, egg, milk, nutmeg. 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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