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 ↓
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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Line a pudding dish with rich pie paste.
Make the filling
In a bowl, mix the beaten eggs with powdered sugar.
Add sweet milk, powdered crackers, melted butter, and rose water to the egg mixture.
Fold in the shredded citron and almonds.
Bake and chill
Pour the mixture into the lined dish and bake until set.
Chill for at least 12 hours before serving.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,245 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Rose + almondtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,465 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,800 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Set the custard and give the pudding its structure as they cook.
- Sweet milk
- Provides the liquid base that the eggs set into a creamy custard.
- Powdered crackers
- Absorb liquid and help give the pudding a firmer, more sliceable body.
- Melted butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smoother, tender texture.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the custard and dissolves easily into the beaten eggs.
- Citron
- Adds chewy, candied fruit texture and a sweet, aromatic flavor.
The step that matters
Bake until set. Eggs set as their proteins coagulate with heat. Underbaking leaves the custard runny, while overbaking makes it curdled, grainy and weepy. Watch for a barely wobbling centre.
“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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