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Dessert

White Leys Pudding

A steamed pudding made with milk, bread, eggs, marmalade, sugar, raisins, almonds, and white wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,781 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

White Leys Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the custard

  1. Pour boiling milk over the crumb of bread and let it cool slightly.

  2. Mash the bread into the milk.

  3. Add beaten eggs, marmalade, sugar, raisins, pounded almonds, and white wine. Mix well.

  4. Grease a tin or earthenware shape and pour in the mixture.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for 1 hour.

  2. Before serving, garnish with sliced sweet almonds, citron, and a sprinkle of pounded sugar.

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. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the pudding into a firm, sliceable custard as they cook.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that softens the bread and gives the custard its body.
Bread
Soaked in hot milk, it thickens the mixture and gives the pudding a light, soft crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the marmalade and citron.
Marmalade
Adds bittersweet citrus flavour and a little acidity to the custard.

The step that matters

Steaming the pudding. Steam must be gentle and steady so the egg custard sets evenly. Too much heat or boiling water can make the eggs curdle and leave a pitted, rubbery texture.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, bread, egg, sugar, almond, white wine, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, bread, egg, sugar, almond, white wine, butter. 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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