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Dessert

Cherry-pudding

A baked cherry custard with butter, eggs, sugar, bread crumbs, and cinnamon, served with cherry sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and cherry match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 551 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Cherry-pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream the butter for 10 minutes.

  2. Add the egg yolks one at a time, then mix in the sugar until frothy.

  3. Stir in the brown bread crumbs and cinnamon.

  4. Gently fold in the whipped egg whites.

Prepare the mold

  1. Grease a large timbale mold with butter and coat with bread crumbs.

Bake and serve

  1. Layer the mixture and drained cherries in the mold, avoiding the sides.

  2. Place the mold on a baking sheet over live embers and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 25 minutes.

  3. Turn out onto a dish and 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.

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. Cinnamon + cherrytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together551 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the pudding a rich, tender body.
Egg yolks
Add richness and emulsify the batter, giving a smooth, custard-like texture.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in to lighten the batter and help it rise and set.
Brown bread crumbs
Add body and structure to the batter, soaking up moisture as it bakes.
Fine sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps create a light, frothy texture when creamed.
Preserved cherries
Provide fruit flavour, sweetness and moisture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles in the whites intact. Stirring them in vigorously deflates the batter, so the pudding bakes up dense rather than light.

Swap the cherry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, sugar, bread, cinnamon, sauce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, sugar, bread, cinnamon, sauce. 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.

More cherry pudding recipes

Steamed 12Boiled 4Sauce 3 See all 111 →

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