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Dessert

The Conservative Pudding

A pudding made from ratafia cakes, macaroon cakes, sponge biscuits, egg yolks, cream, and brandy, baked in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

The Conservative Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the ratafia cakes, macaroon cakes, sponge biscuits, egg yolks, cream, and brandy in a bowl until well combined, then soak the cakes in the cream and brandy mixture.

  2. Butter a quart-sized mold and arrange dried cherries or stoned raisins in a decorative pattern at the bottom.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into the mold.

  2. Place the mold in a stewpan filled with water and simmer for 1.5 hours over low heat.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Biscuit + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Brandy + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Biscuit + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Set the custard, giving the pudding its structure and rich texture as they cook.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the cakes and giving a smooth, tender texture.
Ratafia cakes
Provide the main almond-flavoured body that soaks up the custard and holds the pudding together.
Macaroon cakes
Add body and a chewy, almond-rich flavour as they absorb the cream and brandy.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour depth that complements the cakes and cream.

The step that matters

Gently simmering the mold in water. Egg-rich custards set through gentle heat; boiling or fierce simmering can make the eggs curdle and turn the texture grainy and watery. Keep the water at a low, steady simmer.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (biscuit, egg, cream, brandy, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits about as well
  3. Apricotfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against biscuit, egg, cream, 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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