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Dessert

Cherry Pudding

A steamed pudding made with butter, milk, flour, bread crumbs, sugar, vanilla, eggs, lemon zest, and dried cherries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Cherry Pudding

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cherry Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over gentle heat, then stir in the flour.

  2. Add the milk and stir until the mixture is boiling and thick.

  3. Pour the mixture over the bread crumbs, lemon zest, and sugar.

Assemble and steam

  1. Beat the eggs and add them along with the vanilla and dried cherries.

  2. Pour the mixture into a well‑greased mold, decorating the bottom with dried cherries.

  3. Cover with buttered paper and steam for 2 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with cherry 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.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set into a firm, sliceable pudding when steamed.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk base into a stable, smooth custard-like mixture.
Bread crumbs
Provide bulk and soak up the liquid to give the pudding its body.
Milk
Adds moisture and, with the flour, forms the thick base that the pudding is built on.
Dried cherries
Add fruit flavour, chew and sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Steaming the pudding. The mold must be well greased and covered tightly so the pudding cooks gently in trapped steam. Steaming too hard or too briefly can leave it wet, dense, or stuck to the mold.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, egg, flour, bread, sugar, vanilla. 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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