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Dessert

Saxon Pudding

A steamed pudding made with bread crumbs, ground rice, suet, raisins, jam, brandy, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Saxon Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. Mix the bread crumbs, ground rice, sugar, and baking powder in a bowl.

  2. Stir in the apricot jam or marmalade, brandy, and eggs.

  3. Add a little milk to achieve a smooth consistency.

Fill and steam

  1. Butter a mold and seed the raisins, placing them in even rows inside the mold.

  2. Pour the pudding mixture gently into the mold.

  3. Cover with greased paper and steam for two hours.

Serve

  1. Turn out the pudding and serve with wine sauce.

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. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  2. Apricot + brandytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together513 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Apricot + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together826 recipes

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

  5. Rice + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together565 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 help the pudding set as it steams.
Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and body of the pudding.
Baking powder
Releases gas to lighten the pudding's texture as it steams.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crumb brown slightly.
Raisins
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and fruit flavour throughout.

The step that matters

Adding milk to a smooth consistency. Too little milk leaves the batter stiff and dry, while too much makes a loose mixture that steams heavily and may not hold its shape when turned out. Aim for a spoonable batter that pours gently.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, rice, sugar, egg, apricot, brandy, 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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