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Dessert

Quince Pudding

A baked custard-like dessert made with flour, milk, egg, baking powder, butter, and quince honey.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Quince Pudding

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 batter

  1. Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder.

  2. Beat the egg, then add it to the milk and melted butter.

  3. Mix the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients to form a stiff batter.

  4. Add the quince honey and beat well.

Bake and serve

  1. Turn the mixture into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes.

  3. Cut into squares and serve with sweetened whipped cream.

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 + honeytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,336 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Quince + honeytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Butter + honeytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,327 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together as it bakes.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps it set firm as the pudding bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the pudding rises and becomes light.
Milk
Adds moisture and hydrates the flour to form the batter.
Melted butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Quince honey
Adds sweetness and aroma and moisture, lending the pudding its distinctive flavor.

The step that matters

Mix the wet and dry ingredients to a stiff batter. Stirring too much after combining develops gluten in the flour, which makes the pudding tough and dense. Mix only until the batter just comes together so the crumb stays tender.

Swap the quince

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Quincethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, milk, butter, honey. 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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