Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate and Almond Pudding

A steamed pudding made with butter, milk, flour, chocolate, almonds, eggs, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Chocolate and Almond Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a double boiler, melt the butter and combine with milk, salt, flour, grated chocolate, and chopped almonds.

  2. Cook until thickened, then cool the mixture.

  3. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together, then mix into the cooled chocolate mixture.

Finish and cook

  1. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered mold and steam for 1 hour.

  3. Serve with hard sauce.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Chocolate + almondtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,733 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Egg whites
Beaten and folded in to lighten the pudding and give it an airy texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich the batter and help it set into a tender, custardy texture when cooked.
Flour
Thickens the mixture and gives the pudding its body and structure.
Chopped almonds
Add crunch and a nutty flavour that contrasts with the soft pudding.
Grated chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavour and richness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when beaten to stable peaks. Folding gently keeps that air in the batter, so the pudding stays light rather than dense.

“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

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipesChocolate Drop CookiesChocolate Drop Cookies50 recipes