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Dessert

German Pudding

A custard made with eggs, milk, flour, butter, nutmeg, and sea salt, topped with a sweet sauce of sugar, butter, egg, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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German Pudding

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 ↓

German Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the pudding

  1. Beat the egg whites until very light and set aside.

  2. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks with the milk, flour, butter, nutmeg, and salt, then gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  3. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the egg and wine to the creamed mixture, then stir in the nutmeg.

  3. Heat the sauce mixture over low heat until it comes to a boil.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Whites trapped by beating give the pudding lift and a light, airy structure.
Flour
Starch sets as the pudding bakes, giving the custard body and holding its shape.
Milk
Liquid that sets with the eggs into a tender, custard-like texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for a softer crumb and a silky sauce.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and helps it become smooth when creamed with butter.

The step that matters

Heat the sauce until it comes to a boil. The sauce contains egg, which can scramble or curdle if it overheats or boils too hard. Heating gently over low heat and stirring keeps it smooth and thickened.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

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