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Dessert

Moonshine Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with milk, eggs, cornstarch, sugar, and lemon, served with a vanilla-flavored sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Moonshine Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan until nearly boiling.

  2. Mix the cornstarch with a little cold milk until smooth, then stir the mixture into the hot milk.

  3. Cook for 3-4 minutes until thickened.

  4. Add a pinch of salt and the powdered sugar.

  5. Remove the mixture from heat.

  6. Quickly stir in the beaten egg whites and lemon extract.

Make the sauce

  1. Beat the egg yolks with 2 tablespoons of sugar.

  2. Bring 1 cup of milk to a boil in a double boiler.

  3. Stir in the egg yolk mixture just before it boils.

  4. Let it boil once or twice.

  5. Flavor the sauce with vanilla.

Chill

  1. Chill both the pudding and sauce in a cool place or on ice until cold.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  3. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Lemon + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Milk
Forms the body of the pudding and the sauce, providing moisture and creaminess.
Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the sauce and whites add lightness to the pudding.
Cornstarch
Thickens the hot milk into a smooth, set pudding as its starch gelatinizes.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness to the pudding base.

The step that matters

Stir the egg yolk mixture into the milk just before it boils. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if overheated, so the sauce must be thickened gently and kept below a full boil while stirring constantly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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