Skip to main content
Dessert

Steamed Caramel Pudding

A steamed pudding made with sugar, milk, flour, butter, ground almonds, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and almond 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 ↓

Steamed Caramel Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Melt the sugar in a pan until light brown.

  2. Add the flour and milk, stirring until it forms a paste.

  3. Cool the mixture, then add the butter, ground almonds, and beaten egg yolks.

Prepare and steam

  1. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  2. Butter a pudding mold and sprinkle a little sugar inside.

  3. Steam for 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Serve with whipped cream.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the base and whites, whipped stiff and folded in, lighten the pudding's texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the pudding a tender, moist crumb.
Ground almonds
Add body and a nutty flavor while adding moisture to the batter.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture into a paste, giving the pudding structure once steamed.
Sugar
Melted to a light brown caramel, adding sweetness and a toasted, caramel flavor.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiffly beaten whites hold air that makes the pudding light. Stirring them in vigorously knocks out that air, so fold gently with a spatula until just combined.

“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.

You might also like

Almond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesAlmond WafersAlmond Wafers22 recipesCoconut Almond CakeCoconut Almond Cake17 recipes