Why it works: Milk and peach work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 781 recipes. Both carry phellandrene, which smells minty. The science ↓
A Delmonico Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the custard
Beat the egg yolks until light.
Add the sugar to the yolks and beat until very light.
Mix the cornstarch with a little cold milk, then combine the cornstarch mixture with the egg mixture.
Stir in the quart of milk just before it boils.
Add a little salt.
Stir until the mixture thickens well.
Assemble and bake
Pour the custard into a serving dish.
Place the dish in the oven at 350°F (175°C) until it can hold icing.
Top the custard with a layer of canned peaches.
Mix the peach syrup with the custard if desired.
Make the meringue
Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth, adding 2 tablespoons of sugar for each egg white.
Bake the egg whites in the oven until they are light brown.
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.
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Milk + peachtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together781 recipes
Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).
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Sugar + peachtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,308 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and milk 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
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the custard and enrich its texture as they set with heat.
- Cornstarch
- Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, sliceable custard as it heats.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the custard that the starch and yolks thicken.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard and helps the beaten egg whites hold a stable foam.
- Egg whites
- Whip into a stiff foam that bakes into a light, browned meringue topping.
The step that matters
Stir the custard until it thickens well. Cornstarch needs to reach a boil to fully swell and thicken. Stopping early leaves a thin, runny custard, while overheating can cause the egg yolks to scramble and curdle.
Swap the peach
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Raisinfits about as well
- Peachthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, milk. 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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