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Dessert

Queen Mab Pudding

A gelatinous custard pudding with candied fruit, vanilla, and lemon or orange jelly.

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

Queen Mab Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Line a mold with the jelly and decorate with some of the candied fruit; allow it to set.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs and add the milk.

  2. Pour the mixture into a jug and set it inside a pan of boiling water; stir until it thickens.

  3. Dissolve the gelatine in ½ cup of water; add the custard, sugar, and vanilla.

  4. Strain the mixture into the cream, and when it is just setting, add the remaining candied fruit, cutting it if very large.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into the prepared mold, and when set, dip it into warm water.

  2. Dry with a towel and turn out.

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

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Vanilla + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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 yolks
Thicken the custard as they cook and give it richness.
Gelatine
Sets the custard so the pudding holds its shape when turned out.
Candied fruit
Adds chewy texture and sweetness throughout the pudding.
Cream
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard along with the yolks.

The step that matters

Thickening the custard over boiling water. Egg yolks set at low, gentle heat; if the water is too hot or the custard is overheated, the yolks can curdle and the custard turns grainy instead of smooth.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Strawberryfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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