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Dessert

Pudding with Macaroons

A steamed pudding made with butter, flour, milk, egg yolks, sugar, lemon rind, egg whites, and macaroons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Pudding with Macaroons

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a double saucepan, melt the butter and gradually mix in the flour.

  2. Add the milk and boil thoroughly.

  3. Pour the mixture into a bowl and let it cool.

Assemble and steam

  1. Once cool, stir in the egg yolks, sugar, lemon rind, and beaten egg whites.

  2. Pour half of the mixture into a buttered mold.

  3. Cover with macaroons, then add the remaining mixture on top.

  4. Steam for 2 hours.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Butter
Enriches the base and adds richness and a smooth, tender texture.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter and milk into a stable base that holds the pudding together.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help set the pudding into a creamy, sliceable texture.
Egg whites
Whisked in to lighten the mixture and add structure as the pudding steams.
Macaroons
Add sweetness, almond flavour and a soft, tender layer within the pudding.

The step that matters

Let the base cool before adding the eggs. Adding beaten egg whites and yolks to a hot base can scramble the eggs and make the pudding grainy or uneven. Cooling it first lets the eggs blend smoothly and set evenly during steaming.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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