Skip to main content
Dessert

Baked Vermicelli Pudding

A baked pudding made from vermicelli, milk, cream, cinnamon, butter, sugar, and egg yolks.

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

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Baked Vermicelli 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.

Make the custard base

  1. Simmer the vermicelli in the milk for 10 minutes.

  2. Add the cream, cinnamon, warm butter, sugar, and beaten egg yolks. Mix well.

Bake

  1. Pour into a baking dish without lining.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Vermicelli
Softens in the milk and gives the pudding its body and starchy structure.
Egg yolks
Set during baking to bind the pudding and add richness and a smooth texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the vermicelli cooks in and the custard sets from.
Cream
Adds fat for a richer, softer texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, contributing to a tender texture and flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds to its tender texture.

The step that matters

Baking until set. Egg yolks set as they heat, so the pudding should be baked only until firm at the edges and just set in the center. Overbaking can cause the custard to curdle, weep, or turn grainy.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonthe original
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, butter, sugar, 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.

More vermicelli pudding recipes

Apple 4Baked 3 See all 107 →

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipes