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Dessert

Delicate Pudding

A pudding made with apricot syrup, apricots, nuts, eggs, and milk, thickened with cornstarch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 608 recipes. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Delicate Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the apricot base

  1. Drain 1⅓ cups of apricot syrup and add the juice of 1 lemon.

  2. Heat to boiling and stir in sugar to taste.

  3. Dissolve 3 tablespoons of cornstarch in enough water to make a thin paste.

  4. Quickly stir it into the boiling liquid and stir until thick.

  5. Cover and cook for 10 minutes.

Add the eggs and fruit

  1. Separate 3 eggs, then add a pinch of salt to the egg whites and whip to stiff peaks.

  2. Stir into the mixture on the fire and stir slowly for 3 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat and add 2 cups of chopped apricots and 1 cup of chopped nuts.

  4. Turn into molds.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, combine the yolks of the eggs with 3 tablespoons of granulated sugar and 1½ cups of scalding hot milk.

  2. Stir over a double boiler until thick, then add 1 teaspoon of vanilla.

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. Apricot + vanillatop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together608 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Nuts + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  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

Cornstarch
Thickens the boiling apricot liquid into a set, spoonable base.
Eggs
Whites are whipped for lightness; yolks thicken and enrich the custard sauce.
Apricots
Provide the main fruit flavour and soft pieces throughout the pudding.
Nuts
Add a contrasting crunchy texture to the soft pudding.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding richness and body.
Sugar
Sweetens the apricot base and the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook the egg yolk sauce gently. Egg yolks thicken as they warm, but too much heat makes them curdle and turn grainy. Stirring steadily over a double boiler keeps the sauce smooth and evenly thick.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apricot, syrup, lemon, sugar, egg, milk, vanilla):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apricot, syrup, lemon, sugar, egg, milk, vanilla. 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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