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Dessert

Spring Fruit Pudding

A baked rhubarb pudding flavored with lemon, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and butter, set in a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spring Fruit Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the filling

  1. Clean and chop the rhubarb.

  2. In a stewpan, combine rhubarb, lemon peel, cinnamon, cloves, and sugar.

  3. Cook over medium heat until reduced to a marmalade.

  4. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

Assemble and bake

  1. Add lemon peel, grated nutmeg, butter, egg yolks, and egg white to the mixture and mix well.

  2. Line a pie dish with the pie crust.

  3. Pour the mixture into the crust.

  4. Bake for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Rhubarb + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together279 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rhubarb
Forms the bulk of the filling and provides the tart flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the rhubarb and helps it reduce to a thick marmalade.
Egg yolks
Enrich the filling and help it set into a custard-like texture when baked.
Egg white
Adds structure and helps the filling set when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Reducing the rhubarb to a marmalade. Rhubarb releases a lot of water as it cooks. Cooking it down until thick keeps the filling from becoming watery, so it can set properly once the eggs bake.

Swap the rhubarb

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, cinnamon, clove, sugar, nutmeg, butter, egg):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Rhubarbthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, cinnamon, clove, sugar, nutmeg, butter, egg. 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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