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Dessert

Almond Pudding

A baked almond custard made with almonds, milk, egg whites, powdered sugar, topped with currant jelly and served with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Almond Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Blanch the almonds by pouring boiling water over them, then skin, dry, and grate them.

Make the pudding

  1. Beat the egg whites and powdered sugar together until well combined.

  2. Add the milk and grated almonds to the egg mixture and mix well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for 30 minutes at 300°F (150°C).

Finish and serve

  1. Once cooled, top with bits of currant jelly and serve with sweetened cream or whipped cream.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  4. Almond + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Shelled almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavor of the pudding once grated and blended into the custard.
Egg whites
Whisked with sugar and baked, they set the pudding and give it a light, structured texture.
Milk
Supplies moisture that gives the baked pudding a tender, soft interior.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the mixture and dissolves easily into the beaten egg whites.

The step that matters

Baking the pudding. Baking at a moderate temperature lets the egg whites set gently into a tender custard. Too much heat can make them tough, dry, or cause them to weep.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, milk, egg, sugar, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, milk, egg, sugar, 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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