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Macaroni Pudding

A baked macaroni pudding with raisins, allspice, sugar, and custard, lined with suet crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,475 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Macaroni Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Soak the macaroni in cold water until soft.

  2. Line a pie dish with the suet crust, decorating the edge.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the soaked macaroni in the dish, sprinkling raisins, allspice, and sugar between layers.

  2. Pour enough custard to fill the dish.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes.

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. Allspice + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  2. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  3. Allspice + sugartop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,938 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the pudding and softens as it soaks and bakes.
Suet crust
Forms the pastry base and edge that hold the filling during baking.
Custard
Sets during baking to bind the macaroni and raisins into a soft, creamy filling.
Sultana raisins
Add pockets of sweetness and chewy texture within the pudding.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, raisin. 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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