Skip to main content
Dessert

Delicate Pudding

A sweet milk and egg custard pudding set in molds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Delicate Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a double boiler, combine 1 pint of sweet milk and ½ cup of granulated sugar.

  2. Dissolve 2 tablespoons of cornstarch in a little cold milk.

  3. When the milk mixture boils, add the cornstarch and boil until thickened.

  4. Fold in the beaten egg whites and flavor with vanilla.

  5. Pour into molds and let cool, then refrigerate until set.

Make the custard

  1. For the custard, beat the yolks of 2 eggs and mix with ½ cup sugar and 1 pint of sweet milk.

  2. Cook in a double boiler until thickened, then flavor with vanilla and let cool.

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

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

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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 milk into a set, sliceable pudding as it boils.
Eggs
Whites folded in add lightness and help give the pudding its body.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they cook and add richness.
Sweet milk
Forms the base of both the pudding and the custard.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the pudding and custard.

The step that matters

Adding the cornstarch. Cornstarch must be dissolved in cold liquid first, then added to boiling milk and kept boiling. Otherwise it clumps, and it will not thicken fully unless it reaches a boil.

“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.

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes