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Dessert

Burnt Custard Pudding

A custard pudding made with milk, eggs, sugar, flour, and browned sugar topping, baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Mansfield, W. H., & co., Putnam, Conn., pub. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Burnt Custard Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine one quart of milk, four eggs, and one-half cup of sugar in a bowl.

  2. Cover the bottom of a two-quart tin pan nearly an inch deep with damp brown sugar.

Make the custard

  1. Melt the sugar on the stove, warm the custard and pour over it without stirring. Bake slowly.

Finish and serve

  1. When cold, turn out bottom up.

  2. Add a little salt.

  3. Serve hot with sugar and cream.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

731Calories
27 gProtein
14 gFat
120 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Mansfield, W. H., & co., Putnam, Conn., pub. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 cook, giving it a firm, sliceable structure.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that the eggs set into a smooth custard.
Sugar
Melts into a caramel on the pan bottom and adds sweetness.

The step that matters

Melt the sugar without stirring. Stirring melting sugar can cause it to crystallise instead of forming a smooth, even caramel. Leaving it undisturbed lets it melt and colour evenly on the pan bottom.

“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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