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Dessert

Cream Pudding

A custard pudding baked in a crust of stale bread crumbs and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Cream Pudding

Why it works: Bread and butter 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Grease a pie plate and sprinkle with stale bread crumbs to form a crust.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, stir together the cream, sugar, egg yolks, and nutmeg.

  2. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Pour the cream mixture into the pie plate.

  2. Sprinkle a layer of bread crumbs on top.

  3. Bake until set and lightly browned.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Cream
Provides richness and moisture, giving the pudding a soft, smooth body.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and help it set as it bakes.
Egg whites
Beaten into the mixture to lighten it and add structure as it sets.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the custard brown lightly at the surface.
Stale bread crumbs
Form a crust under the custard and a browned layer on top, adding texture.

The step that matters

Bake until set and lightly browned. Egg proteins set at around 160°F to 180°F and then tighten, so pulling the pudding too late can leave it curdled, dry, or rubbery. Remove it once the centre just wobbles, since it firms further 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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