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Dessert

Spiced-cheese Pudding

A baked custard made with stale bread, eggs, milk, cottage cheese, raisins, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,189 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Spiced-cheese 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

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

  2. Butter a baking dish and place the bread cubes inside.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and whites separately.

  2. Blend the yolks with milk, salt, sugar, cottage cheese, and baking soda.

  3. Add the spices and raisins, then fold in the beaten egg whites.

  4. Pour the mixture over the bread cubes.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in the preheated oven until set, like a custard.

  2. Optionally, beat the egg white with 1 tablespoon of sugar and spread it over the pudding before removing it from the oven.

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. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Raisin + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,475 recipes

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  5. Milk + cottage cheesetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together239 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich and set the custard, while whipped whites add lightness and structure.
Bread
Absorbs the custard and forms the body of the pudding.
Cottage cheese
Adds moisture and body, helping the pudding set into a soft, creamy texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, supplying moisture and tenderness.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and contributes to browning on the surface.
Raisins
Add pockets of sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Whipped whites hold air that gives lightness; overmixing deflates them, leaving a denser pudding after baking.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, egg, milk, cottage cheese, sugar, raisin, allspice):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, milk, cottage cheese, sugar, raisin, allspice. 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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