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Dessert

Conservative Pudding

A steamed pudding made with Savoy biscuits, Eatafias, rum, milk, and topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rum and apricot work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 149 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Conservative Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grease a souffle tin well.

  2. Layer the Savoy biscuits and Eatafias in the tin, adding a little apricot jam between each layer.

  3. Pour the rum over the layers and let it soak in well.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, mix the milk and egg yolks thoroughly, then pour it over the soaked biscuits.

Steam and finish

  1. Cover the tin with greased paper and steam for 1 hour.

  2. Whip the egg white with 3 tablespoons of sugar and a little vanilla until stiff.

  3. Spread the meringue on top of the pudding and brown lightly in the oven.

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. Rum + apricottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together149 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Milk + apricottop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together826 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Rum + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together967 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Biscuit + apricottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together109 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Biscuit + milktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,332 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set into a soft, tender texture when steamed.
Egg white
Whipped with sugar into a stiff meringue that forms a light, browned topping.
Milk
Soaks into the biscuits and forms the liquid custard that sets during steaming.
Savoy biscuits
Absorb the custard and rum, forming the soft, layered body of the pudding.
Rum or brandy
Soaks into the biscuits, adding moisture and a warm, aromatic flavour.

The step that matters

Steaming the pudding. Steam gently and keep the lid greased paper sealed so the custard sets evenly without drying or curdling. Too much heat can make egg-based custard grainy and watery.

Swap the apricot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (biscuit, egg, rum, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Apricotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against biscuit, egg, rum, milk. 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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