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Dessert

Biscuit Pudding

A sweet pudding made by boiling sliced biscuits in milk with lemon peel, then mixing with butter, sugar, eggs, and brandy before baking or boiling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Biscuit 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.

  1. Boil the sliced biscuits in the milk with the chopped lemon peel.

  2. Mash the mixture.

  3. Add the warmed butter, sugar, beaten eggs, and brandy to the mash. Mix well and then bake at 350°F (175°C) or boil 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Biscuit + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together697 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Biscuits
Soften in hot milk and form the bulk of the pudding's body.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set it into a custard-like texture when baked or boiled.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel.
Milk
Softens the biscuits and provides the liquid that the eggs set in.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the lemon peel and brandy.

The step that matters

Mix well and then bake or boil until set. Eggs set when heated to about 160°F to 180°F (70°C to 80°C). Underbaking leaves the pudding loose, while overheating can make the eggs curdle and turn it grainy.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (biscuit, milk, butter, sugar, egg, brandy):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against biscuit, milk, butter, sugar, egg, 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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