Skip to main content
Dessert

Almond Pudding

A baked almond custard made with sugar, butter, egg yolks, ground almonds, lemon juice, rose water, and pastry-lined pie plates.

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

Why it works: Almond and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

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

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

Make the filling

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter until smooth.

  2. Beat the egg yolks in a separate bowl.

  3. Gradually mix the egg yolks and ground almonds into the butter mixture, alternating with the lemon juice and zest.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into lined small pie plates.

  2. Bake until set and lightly golden.

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 + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Rose + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs yolks
Bind the mixture and set into a firm, custardy texture when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that gives the pudding a tender, smooth texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the creamed butter become smooth and light.
Blanched almonds
Provide body and nutty flavour, thickening the filling as it bakes.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the richness.

The step that matters

Gradually mixing the egg yolks and almonds into the butter mixture. Adding the eggs and almonds slowly, alternating with the lemon, helps the batter stay emulsified. Adding everything at once can cause curdling and an uneven, greasy texture.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, almond, rose):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, almond, rose. 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes