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Dessert

Peabody English Pudding

A rich fruit and spice pudding made with flour, butter, sugar, raisins, currants, citron, brandy, and spices, boiled for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Peabody English Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Beat the eggs lightly with the sugar.

  2. Cream the flour and butter together, then stir it into the eggs and sugar mixture.

  3. Fold the citron strips with the raisins and currants.

  4. Mix the spices and lemon sugar into the brandy, then add to the mixture.

  5. Slowly stir in the fruit, one type at a time: first raisins, then currants, then citron.

Boil and serve

  1. Pack the mixture into a pudding mold and boil for 6 hours, adding hot water as needed.

  2. Garnish with blanched almonds, pour ½ cup French brandy over it, and set it on fire at the table.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  4. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.
Flour
Provides the body that holds the pudding together after boiling.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness, giving the pudding a richer texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps tenderize the batter.
Raisins
Add moisture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.
Currants
Add moisture and concentrated sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Keeping the mold topped up with hot water. A long boil needs steady, hot water around the mold. If the water level drops or cools, the boiling slows and the pudding cooks unevenly and may turn out dense.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, raisin, brandy, clove, nutmeg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Quincefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, raisin, brandy, clove, nutmeg. 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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