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Dessert

Neapolitan Custard Pudding

A baked pudding of sponge cake slices spread with jam, topped with a thickened custard and meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Neapolitan Custard Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the base

  1. Spread a little jam over each slice of spongecake.

  2. Place the slices in a buttered pie dish and sprinkle with powdered ratafias.

Make the custard

  1. Sweeten the milk with sugar rubbed on the lemon rind and heat until nearly boiling.

  2. Mix flour with a little cold water and stir into the hot milk.

  3. Add butter and stir over heat until thickened.

  4. Let the mixture cool slightly, then add the beaten egg yolks.

  5. Pour the custard over the spongecakes in the pie dish.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for about 30 minutes until set.

  2. Whip the egg whites to a firm froth and spread on top of the pudding.

  3. Sift powdered sugar over the surface and return to the oven for 8-10 minutes before serving.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Yolks thicken the custard and set it, while whites whip into a light topping.
Flour
Thickens the hot milk into a smooth custard that holds its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel to the custard.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, which sets when baked.
Spongecake
Provides a soft, absorbent base that soaks up the custard beneath the topping.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool slightly before adding the egg yolks. Yolks added to very hot liquid can scramble into lumps. Cooling the custard slightly lets the yolks blend smoothly and thicken gently during baking.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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