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Dessert

The Conservative Pudding

A pudding made from ratafia cakes, macaroon cakes, sponge biscuits, egg yolks, cream, and brandy, baked in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

The Conservative Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the ratafia and macaroon cakes together.

  2. Soak the cakes in the cream and brandy.

  3. In a bowl, beat together the soaked cakes, sponge biscuits, and egg yolks until well combined.

  4. Butter a quart mold and arrange dried cherries or stoned raisins in a pattern inside.

Cook

  1. Pour the mixture into the mold.

  2. Place the mold in a stewpan surrounded by water.

  3. Simmer over charcoal for 30 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.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Biscuit + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Brandy + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

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

  4. Brandy + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Biscuit + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and set it into a firm, sliceable pudding when cooked.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the cakes into a tender custard-like texture.
Ratafia cakes
Provide the main almond-flavoured body and sweetness of the pudding.
Macaroon cakes
Add chewy texture and almond sweetness to the pudding base.
Sponge biscuits
Add airy structure that helps the pudding hold its shape.

The step that matters

Simmering in a water bath. Cooking the mold in gently simmering water, not boiling, lets the egg yolks set evenly. Too much heat can curdle the eggs and leave the pudding rough or watery.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (biscuit, egg, cream, brandy, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits about as well
  3. Apricotfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against biscuit, egg, cream, brandy, butter. 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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