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Dessert

Fruit-pudding

A baked pudding made with crackers or bread, milk, eggs, sugar, spices, raisins, and baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Fruit-pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the crackers in milk overnight, or use sliced bread without soaking.

  2. In a large kettle, mix the beaten eggs, sugar, salt, cloves, allspice, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

  3. Layer the soaked crackers or bread, egg mixture, and raisins in the kettle.

Bake

  1. Fill the kettle three-fourths full with milk if using a store oven, or to the top for a brick oven.

  2. Bake in a brick oven for 3 hours or less in a stove, covering to prevent burning.

  3. Grease the kettle with fat for easier removal and to achieve smooth slices.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Crackers or bread
Form the soft body of the pudding, soaking up the milk and egg custard.
Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, binding the pudding into sliceable form.
Milk
Moistens the crackers and forms the liquid that the eggs set into custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown slightly as it bakes.
Raisins
Add concentrated fruit sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Covering the kettle while baking. Without a cover, the top can scorch before the egg custard sets through the middle. Covering traps heat and moisture so the pudding cooks evenly and stays tender.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Allspicethe original
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, egg, sugar, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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 fruit pudding recipes

Steamed 91Boiled 17Cold 14English 14Baked 12Tapioca 11 See all 210 →

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