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Dessert

Baked Puddings

A baked pudding made with sponge cakes soaked in milk, lemon rind, brandy, and candied peel, topped with clarified butter 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 ↓

Baked Puddings

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.

Prepare the soak

  1. Boil 1 pint + ¼ cup of new milk and dissolve 3 ounces of sugar in it.

  2. Grate the rind of a small lemon into the milk mixture.

  3. Let the mixture cool slightly, then add ½ cup of brandy.

  4. Pour the mixture over the sponge cakes and let it sit for 1 hour.

Bake and finish

  1. Strain 1 ounce of clarified butter over the top or sprinkle with pounded sugar.

  2. Bake in a gentle oven at 300°F (150°C) for 45 minutes or longer.

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

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

  3. Brandy + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard, giving the pudding its structure and a tender, sliceable body.
Sponge cakes
Act as the base that soaks up the custard and holds the pudding's shape.
New milk
Forms the liquid custard that moistens the cake and sets in the oven.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the custard set smoothly.
Brandy
Adds aroma and a warm, spirited flavour to the soak.
Clarified butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the top brown and stay moist.

The step that matters

Bake in a gentle oven. Eggs in a custard set at moderate heat. A gentle oven lets the custard firm evenly without curdling or turning watery, so bake longer if needed rather than raising the heat.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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