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Dessert

Boiled Puddings

A steamed pudding made with milk, bread crumbs, butter, sugar, eggs, brandy, lemon rind, and optional candied orange peel and currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Boiled Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine milk, bread crumbs, butter, sugar, and eggs.

  2. Add brandy and grated lemon rind and mix well.

  3. If desired, fold in candied orange peel and currants.

Steam and set

  1. Pour the mixture into a pudding mold.

  2. Steam for 1 hour and 10 minutes until set.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard-like batter as they cook, giving the pudding its structure.
Bread crumbs
Soak up the milk and give the pudding body and a soft crumb.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the eggs and crumbs set into a moist pudding.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds to its tender texture.

The step that matters

Steam until set. Eggs set through gentle heat; steaming for the stated time lets the custard firm evenly without curdling or leaving the centre liquid. Check that the pudding is firm before removing it from the steamer.

Swap the orange

The recipe marks orange as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, bread, butter, sugar, egg, brandy, lemon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits about as well
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, bread, butter, sugar, egg, brandy, lemon. 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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