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Dessert

Common Custard Pudding

A boiled pudding made from eggs and milk, flavoured and sweetened, then served with sugar or stewed fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 30 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Common Custard Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the custard

  1. Whisk three eggs well and put the eggs into a pint basin.

  2. Add sufficient milk to fill the basin.

  3. Strain the mixture.

  4. Flavour and sweeten it with fine sugar.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil the pudding very softly for an exact half hour.

  2. Let it stand a few minutes.

  3. Dish the pudding and sift sugar over it.

  4. Serve with sweet sauce in a tureen, or with stewed gooseberries, currants, or cherries.

Optional flavouring

  1. A small quantity of lemon-brandy or ratifia may be added for flavour when it is made.

  2. Alternatively, rasp the sugar on a lemon or an orange, crush it, and dissolve it in the milk.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

1117Calories
32 gProtein
24 gFat
186 gCarbs

Counts 10 of 11 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 10 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Rice1 cup cooked (158g) white206
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Eggs1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Orange1 medium (131g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Wine2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)25
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

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

By Eliza Acton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Rice + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Rice + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together565 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Rice + orangetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard into a soft, sliceable body as they cook.
Milk (in the method)
Forms the liquid base that the eggs thicken, giving the pudding its moisture.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the flavour of the eggs and milk.

The step that matters

Boil the pudding very softly for an exact half hour. Egg proteins set gently at low heat. If the custard boils hard or is cooked too long, the eggs can curdle and the texture turns grainy and watery.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, beef, raisin, bread, sugar, butter, sherry):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, beef, raisin, bread, sugar, butter, sherry. 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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