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Dessert

Rolled Wheat Pudding

A baked pudding made from rolled wheat, milk, currants, sultanas, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Rolled Wheat Pudding

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.

Prepare

  1. Soak the rolled wheat in water for 1 hour.

  2. Bring the milk to a boil.

  3. Strain the soaked wheat and add it to the boiling milk.

  4. Cook gently for 1 hour.

  5. Add the currants and sultanas to the mixture.

Bake

  1. Turn the mixture into a buttered pie dish.

  2. Bake the pudding for 40 to 60 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

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. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  4. Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes
  5. Wheat + sugartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,071 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Rolled wheat
Forms the body of the pudding, thickening as it cooks in the milk.
Milk
Provides liquid that cooks the wheat soft and gives the pudding its creamy texture.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy pockets of fruit throughout the pudding.
Sultanas
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy pockets of fruit throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Cook gently for 1 hour. Milk scorches easily on direct heat and the wheat can stick to the bottom of the pan. Gentle heat keeps the milk from burning while the grains slowly absorb liquid and soften.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wheat, milk, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wheat, milk, sugar. 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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