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Dessert

Caramel Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with milk, sugar, eggs, flour, caramel, walnuts, served cold with cream and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Caramel Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Add the sugar, egg yolks, and flour to the boiling milk and cook thoroughly.

  3. Stir in caramel until the flavor suits your taste.

  4. Add salt to taste.

Make the topping

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then add 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar and beat until stiff again.

  2. Fold in the chopped walnuts.

Brown and serve

  1. Spread the walnut mixture over the pudding and brown it.

  2. Serve cold with cream and sugar.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour and egg yolks thicken into a custard.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard as they cook, and whipped whites give the topping its light structure.
Flour
Starch swells in the hot milk and thickens the custard so it holds its shape.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and topping, and helps the whipped whites hold their stiff structure.
Walnuts
Add crunch and nutty flavor to the topping, and browning deepens their taste.

The step that matters

Cook the custard thoroughly. Flour starch thickens only when fully heated, and egg yolks thicken as they cook. Cook until the custard is smooth and thick, because overheated yolks can scramble and curdle.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Walnutthe original

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