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Dessert

Biscuit Pudding

A baked or boiled pudding made from sliced biscuits, milk, lemon peel, butter, sugar, eggs, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Biscuit Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

  1. Boil the sliced biscuits in the milk with the chopped lemon peel, then mash the mixture.

  2. Add the warmed butter, sugar, beaten eggs, and brandy to the mash.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) or boil until set.

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

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

  2. Biscuit + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together697 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

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

  4. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set on heating to bind the mixture into a firm, sliceable pudding.
Biscuits
Soak up the milk and form the bulk and body of the pudding.
Milk
Softens the biscuits and provides the liquid that the eggs set in.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, smooth texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the butter and eggs.

The step that matters

Setting the pudding. Eggs set when heated, but too much heat or too long in the oven or pan makes them tough, curdled, or watery. Remove the pudding once it is just set, while still slightly soft in the centre, as it firms as it cools.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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