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Dessert

Northumberland Pudding

A sweet pudding made with milk, flour, butter, currants, eggs, candied peel, brandy, nutmeg, and sugar, baked in tea cups.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Northumberland Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pudding

  1. Make a hasty pudding with 1 pint of milk and enough flour.

  2. Put the pudding into a basin, cover it, and let it stand overnight.

  3. Mash the pudding with a spoon.

Mix and bake

  1. Add ¼ pound of clarified butter, ½ pound of currants, 4 eggs, 2 ounces of candied peel, ⅓ cup of brandy, nutmeg, and sugar.

  2. Bake in tea cups, then turn them out onto a dish.

Serve

  1. Pour wine sauce over them if serving warm; omit the sauce if serving cold.

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. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Thickens the milk into a hasty pudding that gives the bake its body.
Eggs
Set during baking to bind the mixture and give it structure.
Clarified butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the hasty pudding, adding moisture.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy fruit pieces throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Baking in tea cups. Eggs set as they heat, so baking too long can make the puddings dry and tough. Watch for a firm top and a slight wobble in the centre before turning them out.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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