Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Cream Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Grease a pie plate and sprinkle the bottom with a layer of stale bread crumbs.
Make the custard
In a bowl, stir together the cream, sugar, egg yolks, and grated nutmeg.
Gently fold in the well-beaten egg whites.
Assemble and bake
Pour the cream mixture into the pie plate over the bread crumbs.
Top with another layer of bread crumbs and bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.
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.
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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,920 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Heavy cream
- Adds richness and moisture, giving the pudding a smooth, creamy body.
- Eggs
- Egg yolks and whites set the custard, giving it structure as it bakes.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the custard brown lightly at the surface.
- Stale bread crumbs
- Soak up the custard and form a tender, absorbent layer within the pudding.
The step that matters
Folding in the egg whites. Whites should be well beaten and folded gently so they keep their trapped air. Overmixing deflates them, which can make the pudding denser and less light after baking.
“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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