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Cherry Pudding

A baked cherry pudding with a custard-like mixture of cream, flour, eggs, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Cherry Pudding

Why it works: Cinnamon and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Cherry Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the cherries

  1. Stone the cherries using a wooden skewer.

  2. Combine cherries, cinnamon, 2 tablespoons cold water, and moist sugar in a jar placed in a saucepan of boiling water. Cook until tender and allow to cool.

Make the custard base

  1. Heat the cream, then add flour blended smoothly with milk. Boil well, then add caster sugar and a pinch of salt.

  2. Let the mixture cool slightly, then beat in the egg yolks one at a time. Add lemon rind and finally fold in the stiffly whipped egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter a plain mold, layer cherries on the bottom, then add a layer of the mixture. Repeat until the mold is full.

  2. Cover with greased paper and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 40 minutes.

  3. Serve with a sweet sauce or fruit syrup.

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. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Eggs
Whipped whites and yolks give the pudding its light, risen structure as it sets.
All-purpose flour
Cooked into the cream, it thickens the mixture and gives the pudding body.
Cooking cherries
Provide the fruit flavour and moisture that soften and sweeten the pudding layers.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving a softer, tender crumb.
Caster sugar
Sweetens the base and helps the pudding brown lightly as it bakes.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Whites hold air only when whipped stiff; overmixing or letting the base cool too much deflates them, so the pudding bakes denser and less risen.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cinnamon, flour, egg, cream, milk):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, flour, egg, cream, milk. 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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