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Dessert

Italian Pudding, Boiled

A boiled pudding made from stale rolls, milk, eggs, powdered sugar, vanilla, and currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Italian Pudding, Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the custard base

  1. Grate the crumbs of the stale rolls into a pot with 1 pint of milk.

  2. Boil the mixture carefully for 10 minutes, then pour it into a basin to cool.

  3. Beat the yolks of 3 eggs and add them to the cooled milk and crumbs.

  4. Stir in ½ pound of powdered sugar, vanilla extract, and currants or raisins.

Add the whites and steam

  1. Whisk the 3 egg whites to a firm froth and fold them into the mixture.

  2. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered basin and tie it down.

  3. Place the basin in a saucepan with boiling water, reaching halfway up the basin.

  4. Boil for 1 hour and serve with wine, brandy, or rum 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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Vanilla + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Stale rolls
Their dry crumb soaks up the milk and forms the pudding's body.
Milk
Softens the crumbs and makes the base moist and tender.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and help it set into a soft, custard-like texture.
Egg whites
Whisked to a firm froth, they lighten the mixture and add rise.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds softness to the crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that gives lightness. Folding gently keeps that air in, while stirring hard would deflate the froth and make the pudding dense.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, vanilla, butter. 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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