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Dessert

Bakewell Pudding

A sweet pastry dessert with almond filling, cherries, pears, and a preserve base.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pear and strawberry share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 64 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Bakewell Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Remove the skins from the almonds and chop them finely.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the sugar, lemon peel, lemon juice, egg yolks, and egg whites until well combined. Stir in the melted butter.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a dish with puff pastry and spread a layer of preserve about 1 inch thick on the bottom.

  2. Pour the pudding mixture into the dish. Bake for 20 minutes until set and golden.

  3. Serve warm.

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. Pear + strawberrytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together64 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Almond + strawberrytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together433 recipes

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

  3. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Almond + peartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together175 recipes

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

  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

Egg yolks
Thicken the filling and add richness as they set in the oven.
Egg whites
Add structure and help the filling set into a light, tender custard.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.
Sweet almonds
Add nutty flavour and body to the filling.
Preserve
Adds sweetness and fruity acidity beneath the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until just set. Egg-based fillings turn grainy and watery if overbaked, because the proteins tighten and squeeze out liquid. Pull the pudding when it is set and golden, and let residual heat finish it.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, pear, sugar, egg, butter, strawberry):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, pear, sugar, egg, butter, strawberry. 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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