Why it works: Bread and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a slack oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Prepare the bread
Soak the bread in cold water for 24 hours, using a plate to keep it submerged.
Drain the bread in a colander.
Press the bread dry.
Return the bread to the pan.
Mix and bake
Add flour, treacle (or sugar), lemon peel, currants, mixed spice, suet (or dripping), and eggs.
Mix everything well with a wooden spoon.
Grease a baking dish with butter and pour the mixture into it.
Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for about 3 hours.
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.
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Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Bread + curranttop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,398 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
- Bread
- Forms the body of the pudding, soaking up the liquid and eggs to set into a soft crumb.
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and set during baking, giving the pudding its structure.
- Suet
- Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it bakes.
- Treacle
- Adds sweetness and a dark, molasses-like flavour and moisture.
- Currants
- Provide pockets of concentrated sweetness and fruit flavour throughout the pudding.
- Mixed spice
- Adds warm aromatic flavour that defines the pudding's character.
The step that matters
Press the bread dry. Excess soaking water left in the bread would dilute the eggs and fat, leaving the pudding wet and loose instead of set and crumbly after the long, slow bake.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, flour, sugar, lemon, egg):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, sugar, lemon, egg. 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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