Skip to main content
Dessert

Cream Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with cream, sugar, egg yolks, vanilla, whipped egg whites, and topped with bread crumbs.

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

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cream 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 mixture

  1. Stir together the cream, sugar, egg yolks, and vanilla extract in a bowl.

  2. Whip the egg whites until very light.

  3. Fold the whipped egg whites into the mixture gently.

Assemble

  1. Grease a baking dish.

  2. Sprinkle bread crumbs onto the dish to the thickness of a pie crust.

  3. Pour the mixture into the prepared dish.

  4. Sprinkle more bread crumbs on top.

  5. Place the dish in a shallow pan filled halfway with water.

Bake

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set, similar to baking a custard.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the pudding a smooth, tender body.
Egg yolks
Provide structure as they set, thickening the custard when heated.
Egg whites
Whipped air lightens the mixture and helps the pudding rise and stay tender.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the custard soft and smooth.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Egg proteins coagulate gradually with heat. Underbaking leaves the custard runny, while overbaking makes it curdled and grainy. The water bath moderates the oven heat so the custard sets gently.

“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.

More cream pudding recipes

Lemon 17Orange 10Bread Crumb 9Almond 7Chocolate 7Sour 7 See all 64 →

You might also like

Bread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipes