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Dessert

Walnut Pudding

A baked walnut custard made with walnuts, sugar, butter, egg yolks, and a puff pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,832 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Walnut 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. Crack and pick the walnuts, then blanch and crush them in a marble mortar.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the crushed walnuts with sugar, butter, and egg yolks until well combined.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a baking dish with puff pastry, pour the walnut mixture into it, and cover with more pastry if desired.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until set and golden.

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. Walnut + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Walnut + eggtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,037 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Walnuts
Make up the bulk of the filling and provide its nutty flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist texture.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling and set as it bakes, giving it structure and richness.
Puff pastry
Forms the crust, becoming flaky and crisp as it bakes.

The step that matters

Bake until set and golden. Egg yolks set as their proteins coagulate with heat. Underbaking leaves the filling runny, while overbaking can make it dry and grainy, so check for a firm center and golden color.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits better
  3. Filbertfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

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