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Dessert

Spring Fruit, or Rhubarb Pudding

A sweet rhubarb pudding made with lemon peel, spices, sugar, butter, eggs, and baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spring Fruit, or Rhubarb Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Peel and wash the rhubarb thoroughly.

  2. Place the rhubarb in a saucepan with lemon peel, cinnamon, sugar, and cloves.

  3. Cook over medium heat until it reduces to a marmalade consistency.

  4. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

Finish and bake

  1. Add grated nutmeg, butter, egg yolks, and egg white, and mix well.

  2. Line a pie dish with puff pastry.

  3. Pour the mixture into the lined pie dish.

  4. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Rhubarb + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together279 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Rhubarb
Provides the main body and tart flavour of the filling as it cooks down.
Egg yolks
Enrich the filling and help it set into a custard-like texture when baked.
Egg white
Adds structure to the filling and helps it set when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the rhubarb and helps it reduce to a thick marmalade.

The step that matters

Reducing the rhubarb to marmalade. The rhubarb must cook down until thick before sieving and adding eggs. If it stays watery, the filling will be runny and may not set properly in the oven.

Swap the rhubarb

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, cinnamon, sugar, clove, nutmeg, butter, egg):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Rhubarbthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, cinnamon, sugar, clove, nutmeg, butter, egg. 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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