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Dessert

Cream Pudding with Cherries

A custard-like pudding made with flour, sugar, butter, water, eggs, and preserved cherries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cream Pudding with Cherries

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard

  1. In a large bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, and butter into the warm water until smooth.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly until it thickens to a custard-like consistency.

Fold and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites and yolks separately until very stiff, then fold them into the custard mixture.

  2. Gently fold in the preserved cherries.

  3. Pour the mixture into a deep pudding dish and place it in a larger pan filled with water.

  4. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Provides structure that thickens the mixture into a custard-like body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender texture.
Eggs
Beaten whites add airy lift, while yolks help set and enrich the custard.
Preserved cherries
Add fruit flavour, sweetness and moisture throughout the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and contributes to its tender texture and browning.

The step that matters

Folding in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Egg whites must be beaten until very stiff and folded in gently so they keep their trapped air. Overmixing deflates the foam, and the pudding bakes up dense rather than light.

“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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