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Dessert

Saxon Pudding

A steamed pudding made with ground almonds, butter, stale madeira cake, sugar, cream, eggs, pineapple, and rice flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Saxon Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Scald the cream.

  2. Pour the scalded cream over the stale madeira cake.

  3. Beat the mixture to a pulp.

  4. Add the ground almonds.

  5. Cream the butter, sugar, and egg yolks together.

  6. Add the cream mixture.

  7. Add the rice flour.

Add the fruit and egg whites

  1. Add the pineapple cut into tiny squares.

  2. Stir in the egg whites whisked stiffly.

Steam and serve

  1. Butter a plain mold well.

  2. Decorate the mold with candied peel or glace fruits.

  3. Pour the mixture into the mold.

  4. Steam the pudding for 30 minutes.

  5. Turn out the pudding.

  6. Serve with fruit 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. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whisked whites lighten it and help it set.
Stale madeira cake
Its crumb soaks up the scalded cream, giving the pudding a moist, tender body.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender texture.
Ground almonds
They add body, nutty flavour and a moist, dense crumb.
Rice flour
Adds light starch that helps the steamed pudding hold its shape.
Preserved pineapple
Adds sweetness and acidity, with chewy bites of fruit throughout.

The step that matters

Stirring in the stiffly whisked egg whites. Whites hold air that lifts the batter during steaming. Folding gently keeps that air; overmixing deflates it and leaves a heavier pudding.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

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