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Dessert

Little Brown Puddings

A baked pudding made from bread crumbs, milk, cream, eggs, almonds, ratafias, spices, butter, sugar, and treacle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Little Brown Puddings

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.

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, combine milk, sugar, butter, and bread crumbs, then bring to a boil.

  2. Remove from heat and let cool.

Mix and bake

  1. Beat in the eggs and treacle.

  2. Fold in the whipped cream gently.

  3. Half-fill buttered cup or dariole molds with the mixture.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 20 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the pudding into a custard-like structure as they cook.
Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk that soaks up the milk and gives the pudding its body.
Milk
Hydrates the crumbs and forms the custard base with the eggs.
Cream
Adds richness and a softer, moister texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Treacle
Adds sweetness, depth of flavour and a darker colour.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped cream. Folding gently keeps the air in the whipped cream, which helps the pudding stay light. Vigorous stirring deflates the cream and leads to a denser result.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Cocoafits about as well
  4. Chestnutfits less well

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