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Dessert

Small Almond Puddings

A baked dessert of almond paste, butter, eggs, sugar, cream, brandy, and water, served with sweet sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Small Almond Puddings

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Small Almond Puddings

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.

Make the batter

  1. Blanch and pound the sweet and bitter almonds to a smooth paste with the water.

  2. Warm the butter and mix it with the almond paste.

  3. Add the sugar, cream, brandy, and the beaten egg whites, mixing well.

  4. Butter some cups and fill them halfway with the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake the puddings at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes to 1 hour.

  2. Turn them out onto a dish and serve with sweet 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.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  4. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Cream + brandytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavour, forming the bulk of the pudding's paste.
Bitter almonds
Add a concentrated almond aroma that deepens the flavour of the sweet almonds.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist crumb.
Eggs
Beaten whites trap air and set during baking, giving the pudding its light, firm structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the almonds.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the pudding soft after baking.

The step that matters

Baking the puddings. Egg proteins set as the puddings heat, so too little time leaves them wet in the centre while too long dries and toughens them. Check for a firm top and a clean skewer before turning them out.

“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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