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Dessert

Delmonico Pudding

A coconut pudding made with milk, eggs, sugar, cornstarch, and coconut, topped with whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and coconut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,648 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Delmonico Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Scald the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Wet the cornstarch in cold milk.

  3. Beat the eggs and sugar together, then stir into the scalding milk.

  4. Add the shredded coconut and pour the mixture into a pudding dish.

Top and bake

  1. Whip the reserved egg whites with 3 tablespoons of sugar and flavor with lemon or vanilla.

  2. Spread the whipped egg whites over the pudding and bake until light brown.

Serve

  1. Serve hot or cold.

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 + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + coconuttop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the cornstarch and eggs thicken into a custard.
Eggs
Egg yolks help set the custard, and the whipped whites form a light topping that browns.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the pudding body.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the whipped whites hold their structure.
Shredded coconut
Adds coconut flavor and a chewy texture to the pudding.

The step that matters

Stir the eggs into the scalding milk. Egg proteins set at high heat and can curdle if the mixture gets too hot or is not stirred. Keeping the milk hot but not boiling and stirring constantly gives a smooth, thickened custard.

Swap the coconut

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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