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Dessert

Palace Pudding

A baked custard-like dessert with a buttery sauce made from brown sugar and molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Palace 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.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Add the eggs, then mix in the flour sifted with baking powder and nutmeg.

  4. Grease a baking tin and pour in the mixture.

Bake and make the sauce

  1. Bake for 30 minutes.

  2. For the sauce, rub together 2 teaspoons of butter and 2 teaspoons of flour.

  3. Slowly add 1 cup of boiling water, stirring constantly.

  4. Add 3 teaspoons of brown sugar and 1 teaspoon of molasses.

  5. Boil slowly until the sauce thickens and adjust flavor as desired.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 as they set during baking.
Flour
Forms the structure of the sponge and thickens the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the batter and helps thicken the sauce.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps create a tender crumb when creamed with butter.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the pudding rises and becomes light.
Molasses
Adds depth, color and moisture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the sauce slowly until it thickens. Flour thickens only as its starch absorbs liquid and swells on heating. Adding the water slowly while stirring prevents lumps, and gentle boiling keeps the sauce smooth rather than scorched or stuck.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, sugar, butter, sauce, molasses):

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Jalapenofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, sugar, butter, sauce, molasses. 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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