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Northumberland Puddings

A sweet milk-based pudding from Northumberland made with butter, currants, candied peel, sugar, nutmeg, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Northumberland Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

  1. Heat 1 quart of new milk in a pot with laurel leaves, peach leaves, or cinnamon for flavoring. When the milk boils, remove the flavoring.

  2. Reserve a few tablespoons of the milk to moisten 3 tablespoons of flour.

  3. Thicken the milk with the flour in a double saucepan to prevent burning.

  4. Set the thickened mixture aside to cool until stiff.

  5. Mash in ¼ pound of butter, ¼ pound of currants, and 2 ounces each of candied orange and lemon peel. Add sugar, nutmeg, and brandy to taste.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter tea cups.

  2. Fill the cups with the mixture.

  3. Bake the puddings at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.

  4. Serve with wine 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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Laurel + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,239 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Laurel + orangetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

New milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens into the pudding's custard-like body.
Flour
Thickens the hot milk so the mixture sets firm enough to hold its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and a soft, tender texture to the set mixture.
Currants
Add chewy pockets of sweetness and fruit flavor throughout the pudding.
Candied orange peel
Adds concentrated citrus aroma and a bittersweet, sugary note.

The step that matters

Thicken the milk with the flour in a double saucepan. Flour must be fully mixed in and cooked gently over indirect heat; direct heat can scorch the milk and leave it lumpy or burnt-tasting, and the mixture must thicken before it cools to set firm.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, laurel, flour, butter, orange, lemon, sugar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, laurel, flour, butter, orange, lemon, 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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