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Dessert

The Bake Well Pudding

A custard-like pudding with candied peel, baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

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 with ½ lb of powdered sugar and ½ lb of clarified butter until well mixed.

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

  3. For a less sweet pudding, add 1 pint of milk or milk and cream to the eggs and sugar when near boiling.

Assemble and bake

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

  2. Pour the thickened mixture over the candied peel and bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C).

  3. You can also add preserved fruits and top with apricot or raspberry jam for decoration.

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

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

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

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

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard on gentle heat and add richness and colour.
Egg whites
Add structure and lightness to the set custard filling.
Clarified butter
Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture and flavour.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it set smoothly.
Milk
Adds moisture and softens the custard, making it less sweet.

The step that matters

Thickening the custard over low heat. Eggs set when gently heated but can curdle or scramble if overheated, so keep the heat low and stir constantly until thickened.

Swap the melon

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

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

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