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Dessert

Delmonico Pudding

A hot milk-based pudding thickened with flour and cornstarch, enriched with eggs, butter, sugar, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Delmonico Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Dissolve cornstarch in a little cold milk and strain it.

  2. Stir flour into boiling milk and cook until thick.

  3. Add butter and set aside to cool.

  4. Beat egg yolks and whites separately, then stir into the mixture when slightly cool.

Bake and make the sauce

  1. Place pudding dish in a baking pan half full of boiling water and bake for about 30 minutes.

  2. For the sauce, beat sugar, eggs, and butter until foaming, then add sherry and stir until boiling.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Eggs
Thicken the custard as they set and add richness and structure to the pudding.
Flour
Thickens the boiling milk into a stable base that holds the pudding's body.
Cornstarch
Adds extra thickening so the custard sets smoothly and holds its shape.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour and cornstarch thicken into the custard.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender, rich texture in both the pudding and the sauce.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and helps it beat up to a light, foamy texture.

The step that matters

Baking in a water bath. The pudding dish sits in a half-full pan of boiling water, which moderates the heat around the custard. This gentle, even heat helps it set without curdling or drying at the edges.

“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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