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Dessert

Delmonico Pudding

A custard-based pudding made with sweet milk, corn starch, eggs, sugar, and optional flavoring, baked until lightly browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

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

  1. In a saucepan, mix the sweet milk, corn starch, egg yolks, and 5 tablespoons of sugar to create a custard.

  2. Heat the mixture over medium heat until it begins to boil, stirring constantly.

Fold and bake

  1. While the custard is boiling, beat the egg whites until frothy and gradually add 7 tablespoons of sugar, continuing to beat until stiff peaks form.

  2. Once the custard is boiling, gently fold in the beaten egg whites, stirring continuously.

  3. Pour the mixture into a bowl, add your chosen flavoring, and place it in the oven to brown slightly at 350°F (175°C).

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, providing moisture and body.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the custard its set structure.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and thicken the custard, while whipped whites add lightness.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the egg whites hold their stiff peaks.

The step that matters

Folding the egg whites into the boiling custard. Whites hold air only when whipped properly, and gentle folding keeps that air in the pudding. Stirring too hard deflates the foam and leaves a dense, flat result.

“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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