Skip to main content
Dessert

Baked Puddings

A sweet baked pudding made with milk, sugar, lemon rind, brandy, sponge cakes, candied peel, eggs, clarified butter, and pounded sugar topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Baked Puddings

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard base

  1. Boil 1¼ pints of new milk.

  2. Dissolve 3 ounces of sugar in the milk.

  3. Grate the rind of a small lemon.

  4. Let the mixture cool slightly.

  5. Add ½ cup of brandy.

Assemble

  1. Pour the mixture over the sponge cakes.

  2. Let the mixture sit for 1 hour.

  3. Strain 1 ounce of clarified butter over the top.

  4. Sprinkle pounded sugar over the top.

Bake

  1. Bake in a gentle oven at 300°F (150°C) for 45 minutes or longer.

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

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

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Brandy + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard into a tender structure as they cook and coagulate.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that carries the custard and keeps the pudding moist.
Sponge cakes
Soak up the custard mixture to give the pudding its body and soft texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pounded sugar topping brown in the oven.
Clarified butter
Adds fat and richness, giving a smooth mouthfeel and a golden top.
Brandy
Adds aroma and warm flavour that complements the lemon rind.

The step that matters

Bake in a gentle oven. Eggs set through slow, gentle heat. A hot oven can overcook the outside and cause the custard to curdle, weep or turn grainy before the centre sets.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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

More baked pudding recipes

Plain 7Indian 3 See all 18 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipes