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Dessert

Sally Lunn Pudding

A pudding made by soaking a Sally Lunn cake in boiling milk, then baking with an egg, wine, spice, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Sally Lunn Pudding

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 ↓

Sally Lunn Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the cake

  1. Scoop out a piece from the underside of the Sally Lunn cake without injuring the upper crust and replace it.

  2. Place the cake in a basin that will just hold it.

  3. Pour boiling milk over the cake.

  4. Let it soak for three hours.

  5. Turn the cake out.

Make the custard

  1. Mix the beaten egg with white wine, spice, and sugar.

  2. Remove the piece previously cut out.

  3. Stir in the egg mixture.

  4. Replace the piece.

Boil

  1. Butter the basin you will boil it in.

  2. If the basin is not full, fill it with bread crumbs.

  3. Boil for 45 minutes.

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. Butter + breadtop 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. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sally lunn cake
Provides the bread structure that soaks up the milk and egg mixture.
Milk
Softens the cake and adds moisture, turning it into a tender pudding.
Egg
Sets during boiling to bind the soaked cake into a firm, custard-like pudding.
White wine
Adds moisture and a gentle acidic flavour to the custard mixture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the egg mixture and balances the wine and spice.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg mixture into the soaked cake. The egg must be evenly distributed through the soaked cake so that it sets uniformly as the pudding boils. Uneven mixing can leave pockets of raw egg or dense, wet areas.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Parsleyfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

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