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Dessert

Quaking Pudding

A custard-like pudding made from cream, eggs, flour, nutmeg, and sugar, boiled in a buttered cloth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Quaking Pudding

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Quaking Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scald the cream and let it cool slightly.

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the flour, nutmeg, and sugar.

Cook

  1. Tie the mixture tightly in a buttered cloth.

  2. Boil for 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Carefully turn it out to avoid cracking.

  2. Serve with wine 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.

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.

  1. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Cream
Adds richness and moisture to the pudding.
Eggs
Set as they cook, giving the pudding its firm body.
Flour
Adds body and helps the pudding hold its shape.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the mixture.
Nutmeg
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor.

The step that matters

Carefully turn it out to avoid cracking. The pudding is soft and is set only by the cooked egg proteins. It must be firm enough after boiling and cooling to release from the cloth without tearing or cracking the surface.

“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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