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Dessert

Mincemeat Pudding

A boiled pudding made with mincemeat, breadcrumbs, lemon, brandy, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,340 recipes. Both carry acetoin, which smells butter, cream. The science ↓

Mincemeat Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix all ingredients thoroughly.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil in a cloth or buttered pudding mold for about 3 hours or longer.

  2. Unmold and serve with marmalade or brandy sauce.

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. Brandy + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  2. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Lemon + brandytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Mincemeat
Provides the main sweet, spiced fruit flavour and moisture of the pudding.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding its soft, cake-like body.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set as it cooks, holding the pudding together.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the mincemeat.
Brandy
Adds aroma and a warm, boozy flavour to the pudding.

The step that matters

Keeping the long boil steady. A pudding boiled for hours needs enough water to stay covered and a gentle, steady simmer. If the water boils dry or the cloth or mold is not sealed, the pudding can dry out or turn heavy and uneven.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, 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.

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