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Dessert

Gold and Silver Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with milk, eggs, sherry wine, flour, and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,479 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓

Gold and Silver Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the custard

  1. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Mix the flour with a little cold water and add it to the milk.

  3. Add the beaten yolks of 6 eggs and the whites of 2 eggs.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until set, like custard.

Make the topping and serve

  1. Once cooled, beat the remaining 4 egg whites to stiff peaks.

  2. Gently stir in the powdered sugar and sherry wine.

  3. Spread the frosting over the custard and briefly bake in a hot oven to brown the top.

  4. Serve 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 + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 thicken the custard to a set texture, and whites whipped to peaks give the topping its airy structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, whose proteins set as it bakes.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture so the custard holds its shape when set.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the whipped topping and dissolves easily into the beaten whites.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks. Whites must be cooled and fully whipped to hold air; under-whipped or greasy whites deflate and make the frosting slack and weepy.

“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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