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Dessert

Cream Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with cream, eggs, sugar, nutmeg, and bread crumbs, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Cream Pudding

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cream 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, beat together the cream, sugar, egg yolks, and nutmeg.

  3. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  4. Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the cream mixture.

Assemble and bake

  1. Grease a plate with butter and sprinkle a layer of stale bread crumbs on it.

  2. Pour the cream mixture onto the bread crumbs.

  3. Cover the top with more bread crumbs.

  4. Bake in the preheated oven until set.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Heavy cream
Adds richness and a smooth, tender body to the custard.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream mixture and help it set when baked.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the mixture and add airy structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and contributes to a tender texture.
Stale bread crumbs
Soak up the custard and give the pudding its body and crumbly structure.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped egg whites trap air that gives lightness. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring vigorously deflates the foam and leaves a denser pudding.

“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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