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Dessert

Spiced-cheese Pudding

A baked pudding made with stale bread, eggs, milk, cottage cheese, raisins, sugar, 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

  2. Grease a baking dish and place the cubed bread in the dish.

Make the pudding

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

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

  3. Stir in the spices and chopped raisins.

  4. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  5. Pour the mixture over the bread cubes.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake for 30-40 minutes until set.

  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
Egg yolks enrich and set the custard, while whipped whites add lift and a light texture.
Bread
Cubes soak up the custard and hold its shape as a soft, spoonable structure.
Cottage cheese
Milk proteins set during baking, giving the pudding a dense, creamy body.
Milk
Provides the liquid that moistens the bread and forms the custard base.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the savory cheese and warm spices.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cheese and mixture to release gas, helping the pudding rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Whites hold air bubbles that give the pudding lift. Stirring or mixing them vigorously deflates the foam, leaving a denser pudding that rises less in the oven.

Swap the mace

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

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

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