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Dessert

Vermicelli Pudding, with Apples

A baked pudding made with vermicelli, milk, butter, eggs, apples, and optional brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Vermicelli Pudding, with Apples

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.

Make the pudding base

  1. Heat the milk with the lemon rind in a saucepan until it boils, then remove the rind.

  2. Gradually add the vermicelli, stirring constantly until it becomes tender and thick.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a bowl, mix in the butter, and sweeten to taste.

  4. Let the mixture cool slightly, then stir in the beaten eggs and brandy if using.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a baking dish and pour the pudding mixture into it.

  2. Arrange the sliced apples on top, pressing them into the pudding.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 45 minutes, until the apples are tender.

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. Brandy + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

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

  3. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Lemon + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the pudding and set it into a tender custard as it bakes.
Vermicelli
Thickens the milk and gives the pudding its body and soft texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the vermicelli cooks in and the custard sets from.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded flavour to the pudding.
Baking apples
Soften during baking and add tart fruit flavour and moisture to the pudding.

The step that matters

Cooling before adding the eggs. Stirring beaten eggs into a very hot mixture can scramble them. Letting it cool slightly first lets the eggs blend smoothly and set evenly into a custard as it bakes.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, egg, brandy, apple. 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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