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Dessert

Cracker Pudding

A baked pudding made from powdered crackers, milk, eggs, sugar, raisins or currants, and flavored with salt, nutmeg, and optional flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,377 recipes. Both carry alpha-terpineol, which smells lilac, floral. The science ↓

Cracker 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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine the powdered crackers, milk, egg yolks, sugar, raisins or currants, salt, and nutmeg. Mix well and pour into a baking dish.

Bake and top

  1. Bake for 1 hour.

  2. Whip the egg whites until stiff, then add a little sugar and your choice of flavoring. Spread the egg white mixture over the pudding and return to the oven until lightly browned.

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

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

  2. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Crackers
Powdered crackers thicken the milk and give the pudding its body and structure.
Egg yolks
Egg yolks set during baking, helping bind the pudding into a soft, custard-like texture.
Milk
Milk provides the liquid base that moistens the crackers and carries the custard.
Egg whites
Whipped egg whites form a light foam that bakes into a lightly browned topping.
Raisins or currants
Dried fruit adds chewy sweetness and moisture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be beaten to firm peaks so the foam holds its shape and bakes into a light, lightly browned topping rather than deflating or weeping.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, sugar, raisin):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, raisin. 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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