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Dessert

Baked Almond-pudding

A baked dessert made from almonds, rose water, wine, thickened cream, sugar, eggs, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Almond and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Baked Almond-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 the paste

  1. Blanch the almonds and beat them in a mortar to a smooth paste with the rose-water.

Mix and bake

  1. Add the wine, thickened cream, sugar, eggs, and grated nutmeg.

  2. Mix well and pour into a baking dish.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until light 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. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  3. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Bread + eggtop 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

Almonds
Ground into a paste that gives the pudding its body and nutty flavor.
Eggs
Set the mixture as they cook, giving the pudding structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown during baking.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the pudding tender.

The step that matters

Bake until light brown. Baking heat sets the egg proteins into a custard while browning the sugars on top. Pulling the pudding out too early leaves it loose, while over-baking can make it dry and rubbery.

“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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