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Dessert

Honey Pudding

Honey pudding is a steamed dessert made with honey, breadcrumbs, butter, hominy or semolina, eggs, lemon rind, ginger, and milk.

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

Why it works: Lemon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Honey Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cook the hominy or semolina in the milk for about 10 minutes.

  2. Pour the mixture over the breadcrumbs.

  3. Add the honey, lemon rind, ginger, warmed butter, and the yolks of the eggs, and beat well.

  4. Whisk the egg whites until stiff and gently fold them into the mixture.

Steam and serve

  1. Turn the mixture into a well-greased mold.

  2. Steam for 1 to 2 hours and serve with a suitable 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.

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. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Honey + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,336 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  4. Honey + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Semolina + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together124 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites lighten its texture as it steams.
Breadcrumbs
Form the bulk of the pudding and absorb the milk to give it body.
Honey
Adds sweetness and moisture to the pudding.
Hominy or semolina
Thickens the milk into a starchy base that helps the pudding set.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whisked whites trap air that gives lift. Folding gently keeps that air in, while vigorous stirring deflates the foam and leaves a denser pudding.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against honey, butter, semolina, egg, lemon, milk. 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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