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Dessert

A Glace Cherry Pudding

A baked pudding topped with a sweet glaze and garnished with glace cherries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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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 ↓

A Glace Cherry 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.

Make the pudding

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

  2. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the milk, flour, baking powder, and vanilla extract. Mix until smooth.

  4. Pour the batter into round baking tins and bake until golden.

Top and garnish

  1. In a saucepan, combine 2 tablespoons sugar, ¾ cup milk, corn starch, and the beaten egg white. Cook until thickened, then stir in ½ teaspoon vanilla extract.

  2. Spread the hot mixture over the top of each baked pudding.

  3. Garnish each pudding with 6 halves of white glace cherries.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. For the sauce, boil ¾ cup sugar, 1½ cups milk, butter, corn starch, and egg yolks in a saucepan. Stir in 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.

  2. Pour the sauce around each pudding and serve hot.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Vanilla + corntop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the pudding a light, tender crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure of the pudding as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the pudding rises and becomes light.
Egg yolks
Thicken and enrich the sauce, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Corn starch
Thickens the topping and sauce as it heats, giving a smooth, set texture.

The step that matters

Cooking the topping until thickened. Corn starch thickens only when heated enough to gelatinize, and the egg white must be cooked through. Stop too early and the topping stays runny; overcook and it can turn lumpy or grainy.

Swap the vanilla

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, milk, flour, corn, egg, sauce):

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits less well
  4. Figfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, flour, corn, egg, sauce. 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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