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Dessert

German Pudding

A steamed bread pudding layered with jam, made from milk-soaked bread crumbs, butter, sugar, eggs, and raspberry or apricot jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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German Pudding

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 ↓

German Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the bread mixture

  1. Pour boiling milk over bread crumbs and let cool on a sieve.

  2. Press the mixture in a cloth and beat smooth with a fork.

  3. Mix in butter, sugar, and beaten eggs.

Layer and steam

  1. Line a mold with a layer of the mixture half an inch thick.

  2. Cover with raspberry or apricot jam.

  3. Alternate layers of bread mixture and jam until the mold is filled.

  4. Cover with bread, then with buttered paper, and tie up.

  5. Steam for 1.5 hours.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Milk + raspberrytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,014 recipes

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Soak up the milk to form the body of the pudding.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm when steamed.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender, moist crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the jam.
Raspberry or apricot jam
Provides fruity sweetness and moisture between the layers.

The step that matters

Pressing the soaked crumbs. Crumbs left too wet will make the pudding heavy and loose once steamed. Pressing out excess liquid and beating smooth gives an even, sliceable texture that holds its layers.

Swap the raspberry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Raspberrythe original

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