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Dessert

An Excellent Sponge Cake Pudding

A pudding made by layering sponge cakes with candied peel, eggs, milk, sugar, lemon rind, brandy, clarified butter, and pounded sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

An Excellent Sponge Cake Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Slice the sponge cakes and place them in a well-buttered tart dish.

  2. Add the candied peel on top of the cakes.

Make the custard

  1. Whisk the eggs thoroughly.

  2. Stir in the boiling milk with dissolved sugar and grated lemon rind.

  3. When slightly cooled, add the brandy.

  4. Pour the mixture over the cakes and let it sit for 1 hour.

Bake and serve

  1. Strain the clarified butter over the top and sprinkle with pounded sugar.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 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.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  4. Orange + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Brandy + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Sponge cakes
Form the base that soaks up the custard and holds the pudding's shape.
Eggs
Set the custard as it bakes, giving the pudding its firm, sliceable body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, adding moisture and softness.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the top brown lightly in the oven.
Clarified butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the top brown and taste rich.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture over the cakes and let it sit for 1 hour. Resting lets the sponge cake soak up the liquid custard evenly. Without this soaking, dry patches remain and the pudding sets unevenly during baking.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits about as well
  4. Orangethe original

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