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Dessert

Biscuit Pudding

A baked or boiled pudding made from sliced biscuits, milk, lemon peel, butter, sugar, eggs, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Biscuit Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the pudding

  1. Boil the sliced biscuits in the milk with the chopped lemon peel.

  2. Mash the mixture, add the warmed butter, sugar, and beaten eggs, then stir in the brandy.

Set and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) or boil until set.

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

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

  2. Biscuit + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together697 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  4. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard into a firm, sliceable pudding as they cook.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that softens the biscuits and carries the custard.
Biscuits
Provide body and structure, soaking up the milk to form the pudding's crumb.
Butter
Adds richness and a soft, tender texture to the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the eggs and butter.
Lemon peel
Adds a bright citrus aroma that lifts the flavour of the pudding.

The step that matters

Bake or boil until just set. Egg proteins set as the custard heats, and overcooking makes them tighten and weep or turn grainy and rubbery. Stop as soon as the centre is set but still slightly wobbly, since it firms further as it cools.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (biscuit, milk, butter, sugar, egg, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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