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Dessert

Common Hasty Pudding

A simple pudding made from eggs, milk, bread, sugar, and butter, cooked gently over low heat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Common Hasty Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the egg mixture

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs with a little salt.

  2. Remove a few tablespoons of milk to mix with the eggs.

  3. Add the egg mixture to the bread.

Cook and serve

  1. Stir over low heat for 2-3 minutes, and do not allow it to boil.

  2. Serve with sugar and cold butter.

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg proteins set as they heat, thickening the mixture and giving it structure.
Milk
Provides the liquid that softens the bread and gives the pudding a smooth, creamy moisture.
Bread
Forms the body of the pudding, soaking up the egg and milk mixture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the finished pudding.
Cold butter
Adds fat and richness, and melts into the warm pudding when served.

The step that matters

Do not allow it to boil. Egg proteins coagulate when heated gently. If the mixture gets too hot, the eggs scramble and turn lumpy or grainy instead of forming a smooth, creamy custard texture. Low heat and constant stirring keep the eggs evenly set.

“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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