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Dessert

Sally Lunn Pudding

A pudding made by soaking a Sally Lunn cake in boiling milk, then baking with egg, wine, spice, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Sally Lunn Pudding

Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Sally Lunn Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the cake

  1. Scoop out a piece from the underside of the Sally Lunn cake without damaging the upper crust, then replace the piece.

  2. Place the cake in a basin that fits it snugly and pour boiling milk over it.

  3. Let it soak for 3 hours.

Mix and boil

  1. Turn the cake out and mix the beaten egg, white wine, spice, and sugar in a bowl.

  2. Carefully stir the mixture into the cake, ensuring not to break the crust, and replace the piece you cut out.

  3. Butter the basin you will use for boiling.

  4. If the basin is not full, fill it with bread crumbs.

  5. Boil for 45 minutes.

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. Butter + breadtop 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. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Egg + breadtop 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

Sally lunn cake
Forms the bread base that soaks up the liquids and turns soft and moist.
Milk
Supplies the liquid that softens the cake and keeps the pudding moist.
Egg
Sets when heated, helping bind the soaked cake into a firm, sliceable pudding.
White wine
Adds moisture and a light, tangy flavour to the soaking mixture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the egg and wine mixture.

The step that matters

Carefully stir the mixture into the cake without breaking the crust. The intact upper crust holds the soaked cake together while it boils. Breaking it lets the loose egg mixture escape and can leave the pudding dense or uneven as the egg sets.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Parsleyfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, white wine, sugar, butter, bread. 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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