Why it works: Sugar and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,147 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Cake Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the bread
Place broken bread in a bowl.
Pour boiling water over the bread to cover it.
Cover the bowl with a plate and let it soak until soft.
Drain the water and mash the bread with a fork until smooth.
Mix and bake
Mix in dripping, salt, nutmeg, sugar, and currants or raisins.
Grease a pie dish and pour the mixture into it.
Bake in a well-heated oven at 400°F (200°C) until the top is browned.
Serve
Serve with jam or wine sauce if desired.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,147 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Currant + winetop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,323 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
-
Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,997 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Nutmeg + curranttop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,983 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Bread + curranttop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,398 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Broken bread
- Forms the body of the pudding, soaking up liquid to become soft and tender.
- Dripping
- Adds fat that enriches the texture and helps the top brown in the oven.
- Moist sugar
- Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the top take on color as it bakes.
- Currants or sultana raisins
- Add pockets of concentrated sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
The step that matters
Mashing the soaked bread until smooth. Bread that is left in lumps will bake unevenly and stay dense in places. Draining well first matters too, since excess water dilutes the custard-like body and slows browning.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, nutmeg, sugar, wine, sauce):
- Figfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, nutmeg, sugar, wine, sauce. 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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