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 ↓
Baked 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).
Mix and bake
In a bowl, mix the ground almonds, bitter almonds, wine, egg yolks, lemon peel, butter, cream, and lemon juice until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a baking dish and cover the edges with pastry.
Bake for 30 minutes or until set.
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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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,655 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
-
Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,245 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
-
Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,157 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
-
Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,645 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg yolks
- Set the custard and add richness and structure to the pudding.
- Almonds
- Provide the main body and nutty flavor of the pudding.
- Cream
- Adds moisture and richness, giving the pudding a soft, tender texture.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender crumb.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the richness.
The step that matters
Bake until just set. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but overbaking makes the custard curdle and turn grainy. Pull the pudding when the centre barely wobbles, since it keeps setting as it cools.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, wine, egg, butter, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Raspberryfits better
- Strawberryfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against almond, wine, egg, butter, cream. 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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