Skip to main content
Dessert

Steamed Brandy Pudding

A steamed pudding made with cake slices, brandy, raisins, butter, milk, eggs, and almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Raisin and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,781 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Steamed Brandy Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the moulds

  1. Line the moulds with split almonds coated in butter.

Assemble the pudding

  1. Spread minced raisins on the cake slices.

  2. Fill the moulds, sprinkling in brandy by spoonfuls and adding bits of butter.

  3. Beat the eggs and milk together, then pour into the moulds until full.

Steam

  1. Steam for 1½ hours.

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. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

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

  3. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Brandy + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Raisin + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the custard and help the pudding set as it steams.
Cake slices
Form the soft body of the pudding and soak up the custard and brandy.
Milk
Makes the custard that fills the pudding and keeps it moist.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour to the cake and raisins.
Seedless raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

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

You might also like

Brandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipesAlmond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesAlmond WafersAlmond Wafers22 recipes