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Dessert

Vanilla Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with almonds, sugar, egg yolks, biscuit crumbs, butter, vanilla sugar, egg whites, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and biscuit match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 388 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Vanilla Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Blanch and chop the almonds.

  2. Cream together the sugar and egg yolks.

  3. Add the biscuit crumbs, melted butter, vanilla sugar, and almonds. Mix well.

  4. Fold in the beaten egg whites and add the baking powder.

Cook and bake

  1. Fill a pudding form with the batter and boil for 15 minutes in a kettle of boiling water.

  2. Place the covered kettle into a Caloric oven for two hours.

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 + biscuittop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together388 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Almond + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  4. Biscuit + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together422 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

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

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

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

Egg whites
Beaten whites trap air, giving the pudding a light, airy structure.
Egg yolks
Yolks add richness and help bind the batter while setting.
Almonds
Ground or chopped nuts add body, flavour and a tender crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the pudding rise and stay light.
Butter
Adds fat for moisture and a softer, richer texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only if they are beaten to stable peaks and folded in gently. Stirring them hard deflates the foam, so the pudding comes out dense instead of light.

“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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