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Dessert

Curd Pudding

A baked pudding made from milk curd, butter, bread crumbs, sugar, nutmeg, wine or milk, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Curd Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the curd

  1. Turn 1 quart of milk into curd using Benger's rennet; strain through muslin.

  2. Mix the curd with the butter beaten to a cream, bread crumbs, sugar, 1 tablespoon of milk, nutmeg, and wine or milk.

  3. Beat the egg and add it to the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour into buttered molds or a buttered pie dish and bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 20 minutes.

  2. Turn out, decorate with almonds and sifted sugar, and serve with lemon or fruit sauce.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the curd that gives the pudding its body and soft, custard-like base.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set firm when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the curd mixture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding a light, slightly firm structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps with gentle browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 20 minutes. Baking too long or too hot causes the egg proteins to tighten excessively, leaving the pudding dry, rubbery, or separated. Stopping when the centre is just set keeps it tender and moist.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Parsleyfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, bread, wine, sugar, egg. 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.

More curd pudding recipes

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