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Dessert

Exeter Pudding

A layered pudding made with bread crumbs, sponge cake, ratafias, suet, sago, sugar, eggs, rum, lemon rind, and jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Exeter Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Coat a well-buttered mold or basin lightly with bread crumbs.

  2. Mix all ingredients except ratafias, sponge cake, and jam together well.

Layer and bake

  1. Cover the bottom with ratafias.

  2. Add a layer of the mixture, then cover with slices of sponge cake.

  3. Spread thickly with jam and place a few ratafias on top.

  4. Repeat layers until all materials are used, ensuring the mixture is the top layer.

  5. Bake gently for 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Serve with a sauce made of 2 tablespoons black-currant jelly, a glass of sherry, and a little water, boiled together.

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

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Rum + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together842 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Bind the mixture and set it into a soft, custard-like body as it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Provide bulk and soak up the liquids to give the pudding its body.
Suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender.
Sponge cakes
Add soft, absorbent layers that soak up moisture and flavor from the mixture.
Sago
Thickens the mixture as it absorbs liquid and softens during baking.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the pudding brown lightly.

The step that matters

Bake gently for 1 hour. High heat can cause eggs to curdle and the outside to overcook before the center sets. A gentle oven lets the egg-thickened mixture set evenly into a smooth, moist pudding.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pineapplefits better
  3. Bananafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, egg, rum, cream. 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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