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Peach Pudding

A custard peach pudding topped with meringue, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Peach 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. Heat 1 quart of milk in a saucepan until it boils.

  2. In a bowl, moisten 2 tablespoons of cornstarch with ½ cup of reserved milk.

  3. Add the cornstarch mixture to the boiling milk, stirring constantly until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in 1 tablespoon of butter. Allow to cool.

  5. Once cooled, beat in the yolks of 3 eggs until light and creamy. Add ½ cup of granulated sugar and mix well.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a baking dish, layer 2-3 halved peaches and sprinkle with 3 tablespoons of granulated sugar.

  2. Pour the custard mixture over the peaches and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes.

Top and serve

  1. Make a meringue by beating the whites of 3 eggs with 1 tablespoon of powdered sugar until stiff peaks form.

  2. Spread the meringue over the pudding and return to the oven to brown.

  3. Serve cold with sweetened 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Milk + peachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together781 recipes

    Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).

  3. Butter + peachtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together860 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the body of the custard, which sets as it thickens and cools.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk when heated, giving the custard its smooth, sliceable body.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set to a creamy texture.
Egg whites
Whipped into a meringue that forms a light, browned topping.
Peaches
Provide fruit flavor and moisture beneath the custard.

The step that matters

Adding the cornstarch mixture to the boiling milk. Cornstarch must be fully moistened first and stirred constantly in the boiling milk; otherwise it clumps and the custard stays lumpy or thin instead of smoothly thickened.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Peachthe original

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

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