Skip to main content
Dessert

Carrot Pudding

A steamed pudding made from boiled carrots, breadcrumbs, eggs, butter, and seasoned with pepper and salt, served with bechamel sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Carrot Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the carrots until soft, then chop them small or rub them through a sieve.

  2. Mix the mashed carrots with breadcrumbs, butter, and enough eggs to bind the mixture.

  3. Season with pepper and salt to taste.

Steam and serve

  1. Butter a pudding basin and pour in the mixture.

  2. Steam for 1 to 1.5 hours, depending on size.

  3. Turn out the pudding and serve hot with bechamel sauce poured around it.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Carrot + saucetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,509 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Carrots
Provide the bulk and sweet, earthy flavour of the pudding.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and give the pudding body so it holds its shape.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set during steaming to hold the pudding together.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavour and a softer texture.

The step that matters

Steam for 1 to 1.5 hours, depending on size.. Steaming gently and for long enough lets the eggs set evenly through the pudding. Too little time leaves it wet and loose, while too-vigorous heat can make it rubbery.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, pepper, butter, sauce):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, butter, sauce. 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 carrot pudding recipes

Steamed 9 See all 154 →

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes