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Dessert

Baked Hasty Pudding

A baked lemon pudding made with milk, flour, butter, sugar, eggs, brandy, and optional bitter almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Baked Hasty Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard base

  1. In a saucepan, bring 1 pint of fresh milk and a pinch of salt to a boil.

  2. Mix 2 ounces of flour with a little milk to create a thin batter, then stir it into the boiling milk.

  3. Stir continuously over low heat for 10 minutes, then pour it out to cool slightly.

Finish and bake

  1. Once cooled, mix in 2 ounces of butter, 3 ounces of sugar, the grated lemon rind, and 4 to 5 eggs.

  2. Add ⅓ cup of brandy or orange‑flower water, and optionally, 6 pounded bitter almonds.

  3. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 30 minutes.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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 smooth, set custard base as it is cooked.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the pudding its structure and body.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender, smooth texture to the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemon rind
Adds bright aroma and citrus flavour from the oils in the peel.

The step that matters

Stir the flour batter into the milk and keep stirring over low heat. Flour must be fully dispersed in the boiling milk and cooked for the full 10 minutes, otherwise it can form lumps and the starch will not thicken the base properly before the eggs are added.

“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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