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Dessert

Small Almond Pudding

A baked almond custard made with almonds, butter, eggs, brandy, sugar, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Small Almond 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 the almond base

  1. Blanch and pound the almonds to a smooth paste with a little water.

  2. Warm the butter and mix in the almond paste.

Mix the batter

  1. Add the brandy, sugar, and cream, leaving out the whites of 2 eggs.

  2. Beat the egg whites well and mix everything thoroughly.

  3. Butter some cups and fill them halfway with the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 20 to 30 minutes.

  2. Turn out onto a dish and top each with a cherry and sweet sauce or custard.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  4. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Brandy + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Almonds
Form the bulk of the pudding, giving it a rich, nutty flavour and a dense body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, smooth texture once combined with the almond paste.
Eggs
Whites are beaten to add lift, while the yolks help bind and set the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the richness of the almonds and butter.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites well. Well-beaten whites trap air that gives the pudding lift while baking. Under-beaten whites leave the pudding dense, while over-mixing after folding can knock out the air.

“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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