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Dessert

Baked Puddings

A baked bread pudding made with milk, lemon rind, almonds, currants, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓

Baked Puddings

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Flavour the milk

  1. Simmer the milk, lemon rind, and bruised almonds (or cinnamon) for 10 to 20 minutes.

Assemble and soak

  1. In a bowl, combine the cream (if using), sugar, eggs, and brandy.

  2. Layer the bread and butter in a baking dish, adding currants and candied rind between layers.

  3. Pour the milk mixture over the bread layers and let it soak for 2 hours.

Bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Bake for 30 minutes until set.

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 + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard as they heat, binding the milk and sugar into a sliceable body.
Bread
Soaks up the custard and forms the soft, layered body of the pudding.
Milk
Forms the liquid custard base that soaks into the bread and sets with the eggs.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the eggs and butter.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, softening the bread and giving a tender crumb.
Brandy
Adds a warm aroma and flavour that complements the fruit and citrus.

The step that matters

Bake until just set. Eggs thicken as they heat and become firm past that point. Overbaking makes the custard grainy, rubbery, and prone to weeping, so check for a set centre at 30 minutes.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, almond, cream, sugar, egg, brandy, 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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