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Dessert

Almond Pudding

A steamed almond pudding flavored with ratafia, maraschino, and brandy, finished with whipped egg whites and decorated with pistachios and flowers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Almond Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix ground almonds, crushed ratafia, rice flour, and castor sugar.

  2. Add melted butter, beaten egg yolks, cream, maraschino, and brandy.

Steam and whip

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered mold and steam for 1½ hours.

  2. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  3. Fold in sugar.

Decorate and serve

  1. Decorate the pudding by sprinkling with pistachio nuts and decorating with violets or rose leaves.

  2. Set in a cool oven and serve with custard.

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. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ground almonds
Provides the bulk and nutty flavour, giving the pudding a moist, tender body.
Egg yolks
Enrich the batter and help bind it as it sets during steaming.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they add air and lighten the pudding's structure.
Rice flour
Adds starch that helps the pudding hold its shape as it sets.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, softening the texture of the pudding.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the pudding tender.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks. Whites trap air that lifts the pudding. Overbeaten whites turn dry and grainy and lose that lift, while underbeaten whites collapse when folded in.

“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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