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Dessert

Transparent Pudding

A baked dessert made from eggs, sugar, butter, spices, rose water, and layered with stale cake, sweetmeats, or fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and rose are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,067 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Transparent 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

  1. In a tin pan, combine the eggs, sugar, butter, and spices.

  2. Heat the mixture over medium heat, stirring constantly until it thickens.

  3. Let it cool, then pour it over a layer of stale cake in a buttered baking dish.

  4. If desired, add sweetmeats or citron on top.

Bake and brown

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for nearly an hour.

  2. Beat the remaining egg whites to a froth, then add powdered sugar and flavor to taste.

  3. Pour the frothy mixture over the pudding after baking and return to the oven for a few minutes to brown.

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. Nutmeg + rosetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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
Set the custard as they thicken and bind the pudding together.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the custard thicken into a smooth mass.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the pudding a smooth, tender texture.
Stale cake
Forms the base layer that soaks up the custard and gives body.

The step that matters

Heating the custard until it thickens. Stirring constantly over medium heat keeps the eggs gently cooked and smooth. Too much heat can curdle the eggs and make the custard grainy.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Allspicefits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, rose. 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.

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