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Dessert

Delmonico Pudding

A custard pudding made with milk, sugar, chocolate, cornstarch, gelatin, eggs, vanilla, rum, cherries, and grated macaroons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Delmonico Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Dissolve gelatin in milk for 30 minutes.

  2. Beat the yolks of the eggs with sugar and add the dissolved gelatin.

  3. Remove from heat, cool to tepid, and add vanilla and rum.

  4. Fold in the well-beaten egg whites.

Layer and serve

  1. Place cherries in the bottom of a dish.

  2. Add some custard, then add grated macaroons.

  3. Alternate layers until all ingredients are used.

  4. Turn out of the mold so that the cherries are on top.

  5. Serve with Charlotte Russe.

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. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Vanilla + rumtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together728 recipes

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

  4. Chocolate + rumtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together286 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

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

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

Gelatine
Sets the dissolved milk mixture into a firm, sliceable custard.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and add richness and body to the pudding.
Egg whites
Folded in to lighten the custard and add airy texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the gelatine dissolves into and sets.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the flavour of the eggs.

The step that matters

Fold in the well-beaten egg whites. Cool the mixture to tepid first. If it is still hot, the whites will deflate and lose their air, and if it is too cold the gelatine can begin to set before the layers are assembled.

“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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