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Dessert

The Bake Well Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with eggs, sugar, butter, milk, and candied peel, baked in a puff pastry-lined dish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Melon and apricot share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

The Bake Well Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the yolks of 4 eggs and the whites of 2 eggs with 1 lb of powdered sugar and 1 lb of clarified butter until well mixed.

  2. Place the mixture over low heat, stirring constantly until it thickens.

  3. Mix in 1 pint of milk (or milk and cream) when the egg mixture is near boiling, without heating it further.

Bake and serve

  1. Line a dish with puff paste and add a layer of candied peel about 1 inch thick.

  2. Pour the thickened mixture over the candied peel.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until set.

  4. Optionally, add preserved fruits and top with apricot or raspberry jam before serving.

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. Melon + apricottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together35 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Brandy + apricottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Milk + apricottop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together826 recipes

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

  5. Milk + melontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together69 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks and whites
Coagulate on heating to set the custard into a firm, sliceable body.
Clarified butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the custard.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps give it a fine, smooth texture.
Milk
Thins the custard and adds moisture and softness to the set pudding.

The step that matters

Adding the milk near boiling. Egg proteins thicken with heat and can curdle or turn grainy if overheated, so the milk should be stirred in once the mixture is near boiling and not heated further.

Swap the melon

The recipe marks melon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, butter, milk, brandy, apricot):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Melonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, milk, brandy, apricot. 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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