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Dessert

820 Carolina Pudding

A pudding made with eggs, sugar, Carolina rice, butter, cloves, apples, milk, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,774 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

820 Carolina Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rice base

  1. Blanch and boil the rice in milk until soft, using ¾ to 1 pint of milk.

  2. Boil the cloves with the rice.

  3. Remove the cloves.

  4. Beat in the butter once the rice is cool.

Add the eggs and apples

  1. Add the eggs, sugar, and sherry to the rice mixture.

  2. Bake the apples in their skins.

  3. Sieve the pulp and mix it into the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish.

  2. Bake until set.

  3. Serve with a sweet sauce.

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. Clove + appletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Apple + sherrytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together395 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the pudding its structure.
Carolina rice
Thickens the milk as it softens, giving the pudding its body.
Butter
Adds richness and a softer, smoother texture to the mixture.
Lump sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps it brown lightly in the oven.
Apples
Add moisture, flavour and body once baked and sieved into the mixture.
Sherry
Adds aroma and a warm, fruity flavour to the pudding.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs set as they heat, so underbaking leaves the pudding loose and overbaking makes it dry and grainy. Watch for a firm centre with a slight wobble.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, rice, butter, apple, milk, sherry. 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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