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Dessert

A Souffle Pudding

A custard-like pudding made from soaked buns, milk, almonds, cinnamon, sugar, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

A Souffle Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the buns

  1. Place the buns in a large deep dish and pour 1 pint of milk over them to soak thoroughly.

  2. Let them sit for 1.5 hours.

Make the custard

  1. In a small saucepan, boil ½ pint of milk with the almonds or peach kernels and cinnamon sticks, keeping it covered.

  2. Strain the flavored milk.

  3. Let it cool.

  4. Mix the cooled milk with another pint of milk and stir in the powdered sugar.

  5. Beat the eggs until light and gradually add them to the milk mixture to create a custard.

Bake and serve

  1. Mash the soaked buns until smooth and gradually mix in the custard until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 10 minutes.

  3. Serve with sifted white sugar on top or with a sauce.

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. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Beaten eggs set the custard and give the pudding its light, airy structure.
Plain buns (rusk)
Soaked and mashed, they form the bulk of the pudding and absorb the milk.
Milk
Provides the liquid that soaks the buns and forms the custard base, adding moisture.
Powdered loaf sugar
Sweetens the custard and dissolves smoothly into the milk mixture.

The step that matters

Baking the pudding. Eggs set through heat, so the pudding must be baked in a hot oven until firm; an underbaked centre stays wet and collapses as it cools.

“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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