Skip to main content
Dessert

Bakewell Pudding

A layered dessert made with a short crust, jam, and a butter‑sugar‑cornflour custard topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Bakewell Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the crust

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, butter, sugar, and cold water to form a short crust.

  3. Line a buttered baking dish with the crust, decorating the edges if desired.

  4. Spread a layer of jam at the bottom of the dish.

Make the filling

  1. In another bowl, beat the butter and sugar until creamy.

  2. Add warm water, then cornflour, mixing well.

  3. Incorporate the beaten eggs and lemon essence into the mixture.

  4. Pour the mixture over the jam layer and sprinkle sugar on top.

Bake

  1. Bake 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 + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 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
Forms the structure of the short crust that holds the jam and filling.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to both the crust and the creamed filling.
Eggs
Bind the filling and help it set as it bakes.
Cornflour
Thickens the filling so it sets to a soft, sliceable texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the crust and filling and helps the top brown.
Jam
Provides a fruity sweet layer beneath the filling.

The step that matters

Beating the butter and sugar until creamy. Creaming traps air in the fat and sugar, which gives the filling a lighter texture. Under-beaten butter leaves a denser, greasier result after baking.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes