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Dessert

German Pudding

A steamed bread pudding made with lemon, milk, bread crumbs, sugar, butter, eggs, and jam or marmalade.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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German Pudding

Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

German Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the milk

  1. Peel the lemon thinly and cut the peel into strips.

  2. Infuse the lemon peel in the milk for a while, then bring the milk to a boil.

  3. Remove the peel and pour the hot milk over the bread crumbs, sugar, and butter.

Make the mixture

  1. When the mixture cools, add the eggs and beat thoroughly for a few minutes.

Layer and steam

  1. Butter a basin and add a layer of the mixture, then a layer of jam or marmalade, repeating until the basin is full.

  2. Ensure the top layer is made of the bread mixture.

  3. Steam the pudding for 1.5 to 2 hours, depending on the depth of the mold.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set it into a firm, sliceable pudding when steamed.
Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and body that soak up the milk and hold the pudding together.
Milk
Soaks into the bread and, with the eggs, forms the moist custard that sets the pudding.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the pudding a softer, more tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the jam or marmalade.

The step that matters

Beating in the eggs after the mixture cools. Eggs added to a very hot mixture can scramble or curdle, so letting it cool first keeps the batter smooth. Thorough beating then distributes the eggs evenly so the pudding sets uniformly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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