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Dessert

Boiled College Pudding

A boiled pudding made from bread crumbs, suet, currants, sultanas, candied peel, egg, milk, baking powder, and golden syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Boiled College Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large bowl, mix the bread crumbs, suet, currants, sultanas, nutmeg, and candied peel.

  2. Beat the egg and add it along with the Lyle's Golden Syrup to the dry mixture.

  3. Moisten with milk if necessary and mix well.

Cook

  1. Pour the mixture into well-greased small molds or a greased basin.

  2. Boil for one hour.

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  3. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Nutmeg + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Currant + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and body that hold the pudding together.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Egg
Binds the mixture so it holds its shape when cooked.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking to lighten the pudding's texture.
Lyle's golden syrup
Adds sweetness and a caramel flavour, and moisture to the mixture.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, nutmeg, egg, milk, syrup):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, nutmeg, egg, milk, syrup. 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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