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Dessert

Wine Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with eggs, sugar, spices, lemon rind, bread crumbs, and baked, then topped with boiled wine and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Wine Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs and sugar until foamy.

  2. Add cinnamon, cloves, lemon rind, and enough bread crumbs to create a thin batter. Stir well and add baking powder if desired.

Bake

  1. Place the baking dish in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) using two radiators.

  2. Bake for 1½ hours.

Serve

  1. Turn the pudding onto a platter.

  2. Pour over it the boiled white wine mixed with sugar and lemon rind.

  3. Serve warm or cold.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  3. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Eggs
Beaten foamy, they trap air and set into the body of the pudding as it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Give the batter bulk and body so it holds together rather than running thin.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the beaten eggs hold their foam.
White wine
Adds liquid, fruity acidity and flavour to the sauce poured over the pudding.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the pudding rise and lighten.
Lemon rind
Contributes fragrant citrus aroma to the batter and the wine sauce.

The step that matters

Bake for 1½ hours at 350°F (175°C). Heat slowly sets the egg proteins and bread crumb structure into a firm pudding. Baking too hot can cause the outside to over-brown while the centre stays loose and wet.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, cinnamon, clove, bread, white wine):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, cinnamon, clove, bread, white wine. 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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