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Dessert

Beehive Pudding

A steamed pudding made with sugar, flour, butter, milk, eggs, cream, macaroni, bread crumbs, sherry, marmalade, and yellow coloring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Beehive Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Blend the butter and sugar in a saucepan over low heat.

  2. Add the flour and milk to the mixture.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Remove the mixture from the heat.

  5. Stir in the cream and egg yolks once the mixture has cooled.

Prepare the macaroni and crumbs

  1. Cook the macaroni in a little milk until tender.

  2. Cut the cooked macaroni into small pieces.

  3. Ensure the bread crumbs are lump-free.

Assemble and steam

  1. Combine all ingredients and pour the mixture into a buttered mold.

  2. Steam the pudding for about 1.5 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve the pudding with a sweet sauce, either cold or hot.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the pudding into a firm, sliceable custard structure during steaming.
Flour
Thickens the base and gives the pudding body and structure.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture for a softer, smoother texture.
Bread crumbs
Add body and help bind the pudding so it holds its shape.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and balances the richness of the butter and eggs.
Butter
Adds fat for flavor and a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolks only after the mixture has cooled. Egg proteins begin to set and scramble when they meet a hot mixture, which creates lumps and a grainy texture. Cooling the base first lets the yolks blend in smoothly and keeps the custard even.

“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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