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Dessert

Cherry Pudding

A baked pudding made from chestnut flour, water, optional eggs, raisins, nuts, spices, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Cherry Pudding

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 ↓

Cherry Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the chestnut flour with water to form a batter.

  2. If using, beat in the eggs for a lighter pudding.

  3. Add chopped raisins and nuts, salt, spices, and baking powder.

Bake and serve

  1. Preheat a shallow dish or tin with salad oil.

  2. Pour the batter into the hot dish and let it set.

  3. Once the surface begins to set, drizzle more oil on top.

  4. Bake until browned and crisp, then cut into squares and serve 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Chestnut + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together517 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Chestnut + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together65 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Raisin + nutstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Chestnut + nutstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Chestnut flour
Forms the main body of the pudding, setting into a dense, starchy batter-based cake.
Eggs
Optional; add structure and lightness by trapping air and setting into the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the pudding rise and become lighter in texture.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy moisture as they plump within the batter.
Nuts
Add crunch and toasty flavour, and fat that contributes to richness.

The step that matters

Preheating the dish with oil before pouring the batter. Pouring the batter into a hot, oiled dish starts the surface setting quickly and helps prevent sticking, giving a crisp, browned base and edges.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Brazil nutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chestnut, flour, egg, 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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