Skip to main content
Dessert

Pretty Pudding

A custard made with flour, milk, egg yolks, sugar, flavored with vanilla or rose, topped with beaten egg whites and jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Pretty Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Mix flour with cold milk.

  2. Add beaten egg yolks and sugar.

  3. Heat 1 quart of milk in boiling water.

  4. Stir in the flour mixture and flavoring until it thickens.

  5. Remove from heat.

  6. Let cool slightly.

  7. Pour into a dish or cups.

Top and serve

  1. Beat egg whites until frothy. Add sugar to egg whites.

  2. Drop the beaten whites on top of the custard.

  3. Place a small spoon of jelly in the center of each round.

  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 + 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. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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 yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness as they set with the heated milk.
Egg whites
Whip into a light froth that sits on top of the custard as a soft topping.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture so the custard sets smoothly rather than staying runny.
Milk
Forms the body of the custard, carrying the thickening eggs and flour.
Currant or other tart jelly
Adds a tart, fruity contrast that balances the sweet custard.

The step that matters

Stir the flour mixture into the hot milk until it thickens. Flour starch thickens only when heated, and egg yolks can curdle or scramble if the mixture gets too hot too fast. Stir steadily and keep the heat moderate so the custard thickens evenly and stays smooth.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesRed Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesCurrant Ice CreamCurrant Ice Cream32 recipesCurrant SherbetCurrant Sherbet9 recipes