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Wiltshire Pudding

A boiled pudding made with eggs, milk, flour, salt, currants, and raspberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Wiltshire Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the eggs and milk together.

  2. Gradually add flour until you achieve a thick batter consistency.

  3. Stir in the salt and beat the mixture for a few minutes.

  4. Gently fold in the red currants and raspberries.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the mixture in a cloth and boil for 2 hours.

  2. Turn the pudding out onto a serving dish.

  3. Cut into slices about ¾ inch thick without separating them.

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 + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + red curranttop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together193 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Flour + red curranttop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together394 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and help the pudding set firm as it cooks.
Flour
Thickens the milk and eggs into a batter that holds its shape.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter so it cooks through evenly.
Red currants
Add tart acidity and juice that contrast with the sweetness of the pudding.
Red raspberries
Add soft fruit texture and tangy flavour, releasing juice as they cook.

The step that matters

Fold in the fruit gently. Folding keeps the batter airy and the berries whole; overbeating breaks the fruit and can turn the pudding dense and streaked with juice.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, flour):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, flour. 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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