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Dessert

Pompadour Pudding, Rich

A rich pudding made with cream, bread crumbs, suet, flour, macaroons, sugar, raisins, cherries, candied peel, lemon rind, nutmeg, salt, egg yolks, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pompadour Pudding, Rich

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Pour boiling cream over the bread-crumbs and let soak until cool.

  2. Beat the mixture with a fork, then add the suet, flour, macaroons, powdered sugar, raisins, cherries, candied peel, lemon rind, nutmeg, and salt.

  3. Mix well, then stir in the egg yolks and brandy.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered mold, filling it to the brim.

  2. Cover with oiled paper and tie securely in a floured cloth.

  3. Boil or steam the pudding until cooked through, about 1 hour.

  4. Let it stand for a minute before turning it out, then serve immediately.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread-crumbs
Soak up the hot cream to form a moist, tender body for the pudding.
Beef suet
Adds richness and fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it cooks.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and help it set firmly while steaming.
Flour
Thickens the mixture and gives the pudding structure.
Macaroons
Add almond sweetness and a light, crumbly texture to the batter.

The step that matters

Sealing the mold for steaming. The cloth and paper must be tied snugly so steam cannot escape and water cannot enter. Loose wrapping lets water soak the pudding, making it soggy, or lets the steam dry it out during the long cooking.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, bread, beef, flour, sugar, raisin, nutmeg):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, bread, beef, flour, sugar, raisin, nutmeg. 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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