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Dessert

Northumberland Puddings

A baked pudding made from milk, flour, butter, currants, candied peel, and optional brandy, served with wine sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Northumberland Puddings

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.

Make the batter

  1. Boil the milk and flour together to make a thick batter.

  2. Let the batter cool and firm up, then mash it up.

  3. Add melted butter, currants, candied lemon and orange peel, and brandy if desired.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter teacups and fill them with the mixture.

  2. Bake the puddings in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 15 minutes.

  3. Turn them out onto a dish and pour wine sauce over if serving hot.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

All-purpose flour
Starch thickens with the boiled milk, giving the batter a firm, sturdy body that holds its shape.
Milk
Liquid that cooks with the flour to form the thick batter base.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist crumb.
Currants
Provide sweetness and pockets of moist, chewy fruit throughout the pudding.
Candied lemon and orange peel
Add concentrated sweetness and a bright citrus aroma to the batter.

The step that matters

Boil the milk and flour into a thick batter, then let it cool and firm. Flour starch must be cooked in the hot liquid to swell and thicken it. Letting the batter cool and firm up before filling gives the puddings a set structure instead of a runny mixture.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, butter, lemon, orange, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Blackberryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, butter, lemon, orange, brandy. 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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