Why it works: Biscuit and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 368 recipes. Both carry maltol, which smells caramel, sweet. The science ↓
College Puddings
Ingredients
Directions
Make the pudding
Mix the grated biscuit, currants, suet, sugar, and nutmeg together.
Add the yolks of 3 eggs and form the mixture into balls.
Fry and serve
Fry the balls in fresh butter until they are a light color.
Serve with white-wine sauce.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Biscuit + nutmegtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together368 recipes
Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).
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Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,147 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Butter + winetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,645 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Currant + winetop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,323 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
- Grated biscuit
- Forms the bulk of the pudding and gives it a crumbly, absorbent body.
- Suet
- Adds fat that keeps the balls moist and tender as they cook.
- Egg yolks
- Bind the crumbs and fat so the mixture holds together when shaped.
- Currants
- Add chewy pockets of sweetness and fruity flavour throughout the pudding.
- Fresh butter
- Conducts heat for frying and browns the outside for flavour and colour.
The step that matters
Frying until a light color. Frying over heat that is too high browns the outside before the centre warms through, while the fat needs to stay hot enough to crisp the surface without burning the butter. Keeping the balls moving in the pan helps them colour evenly.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (biscuit, sugar, nutmeg, egg, butter, wine, sauce):
- Vanillafits better
- Lemonfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against biscuit, sugar, nutmeg, egg, butter, wine, sauce. 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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