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Dessert

Delmonico Pudding

A custard pudding made with milk, egg yolks, sugar, corn starch, topped with jelly and meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Delmonico 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.

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. In a bowl, blend the egg yolks, ⅓ cup sugar, and corn starch with a little water.

  3. Add the egg mixture to the boiling milk, stirring constantly until it thickens.

  4. Flavor the mixture as desired and pour it into a pudding dish.

Top and bake

  1. Spread the jelly on top and sprinkle with the remaining sugar.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add 2 tablespoons sugar to make a meringue.

  3. Spread the meringue over the pudding and place it in a 350°F (175°C) oven to slightly brown.

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 + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness and a smooth texture.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk mixture as it heats, giving the custard body.
Egg whites
Whipped into a meringue that gives a light, airy topping.
Milk
Forms the base of the custard that the eggs and starch thicken.
Jelly
Adds a fruity sweetness and flavor layer beneath the meringue.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture to the boiling milk. Stirring constantly keeps the egg yolks from scrambling on contact with hot milk, while the starch thickens the custard smoothly.

“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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