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Dessert

Bermuda Pudding

A steamed pudding made from stale cake crumbs, milk, eggs, sugar, and preserved ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Bermuda Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crumb base

  1. Place the stale cake crumbs in a basin and pour the boiling milk over them.

  2. Soak for 30 minutes.

  3. Beat the mixture thoroughly with a fork.

  4. Add the well-beaten eggs and sugar, mixing well.

Line and steam

  1. Butter a mold and carefully line it with strips of preserved ginger.

  2. Gently pour the mixture into the mold, taking care not to disturb the ginger.

  3. Cover with buttered paper and steam for 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with custard sauce.

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. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  2. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  4. Milk + gingertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,519 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Stale cake crumbs
Absorb the hot milk and form the soft, bread-like body of the pudding.
Eggs
Set during steaming to bind the pudding and give it a firm, sliceable texture.
Boiling milk
Softens the crumbs and adds moisture so the pudding stays tender.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to the pudding's flavour.
Preserved ginger
Adds spicy, aromatic flavour and a decorative lining in the mold.

The step that matters

Gently pour the mixture into the mold. The ginger strips lining the mold can shift and stick out of place if disturbed. Pouring slowly keeps the lining intact so the pattern shows when the pudding is turned out after steaming.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, 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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