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Dessert

A Quaking Pudding

A pudding made from grated penny loaf, rice flour, eggs, milk, nutmeg, and rose water, boiled and served with butter, wine, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

A Quaking Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grate the penny loaf and add rice flour.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs well.

Cook

  1. Combine the grated loaf, rice flour, beaten eggs, milk, nutmeg, and rose water.

  2. Tie the mixture in a cloth and boil for one hour.

Serve

  1. Serve with melted butter, white wine, and 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Rice + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Penny loaf
Bread crumbs give the pudding its body and soak up the liquid as it cooks.
Eggs
Eggs bind the mixture and set it as it cooks, giving the pudding its firm, tender texture.
New milk
Milk supplies the liquid that moistens the bread and forms the custard base.
Rice flour
Rice flour thickens the mixture and helps it hold together when boiled.

The step that matters

Tie the mixture in a cloth and boil for one hour. The cloth must be tied firmly so the pudding holds its shape while it cooks. Boiling at a steady simmer sets the eggs gently, so the pudding stays tender instead of turning rubbery.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, flour, egg, milk, rose, butter, white wine):

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, flour, egg, milk, rose, butter, white wine. 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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