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Dessert

Honey Pudding

A steamed honey pudding made with breadcrumbs, butter, flour, 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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cook the florador in the milk for 10 minutes.

  2. Pour the mixture over the breadcrumbs.

  3. Add the honey, lemon rind, ginger, warmed butter, and egg yolks, then beat well.

  4. Whisk the egg whites until stiff.

  5. Gently fold them into the mixture.

Steam and serve

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

  2. Steam gently for 1 to 2 hours.

  3. 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. Honey + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,327 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites trap air that lifts the pudding, while yolks enrich and bind the batter.
Breadcrumbs
Form the body of the pudding and absorb the liquid to create a soft, moist crumb.
Florador
Flour that cooked in milk thickens and gives the batter structure as it sets.
Honey
Adds sweetness and moisture, and keeps the pudding soft.
Milk
Provides moisture and softens the breadcrumbs while thickening with the florador.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites must be stiff but folded gently, since stirring or beating deflates the air bubbles that lift the pudding and leaves it dense.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against honey, butter, 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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