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Dessert

Alexandra Pudding

A custard pudding made with eggs, milk, cream, sugar, and vanilla, steamed in a water bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Alexandra Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil a saucepan of warm water.

  2. In a basin, combine the yolks of 10 eggs.

  3. Stir in 2 ounces of powdered sugar.

  4. Add ½ cup of milk and 2 cups of cream.

  5. Whip the whites of 5 eggs until slightly frothy.

  6. Butter a 1‑pint tin mold and line the bottom with buttered paper.

  7. Gently fold the whipped egg whites and 1 teaspoon of vanilla into the egg mixture.

  8. Strain the mixture into the mold and cover with stiff paper tied with string.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the mold in the boiling water, ensuring the water reaches halfway up the mold.

  2. Simmer gently for about 1 hour and 15 minutes until firm; do not let it boil fast.

  3. Remove the pudding from the saucepan and cool it in ice.

  4. Carefully remove the buttered paper and turn the pudding onto a dish, garnishing with red currant jelly as desired.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

Eggs
Yolks and whipped whites set the custard and give the pudding its light, firm structure.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the pudding a smooth, tender texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and dilutes the custard so it sets softly rather than stiffly.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the custard and dissolves smoothly into the egg mixture.

The step that matters

Simmer gently, do not boil. Egg-based custards set through gentle heat. Rapid boiling makes the proteins contract too hard, producing a curdled, watery, or rubbery pudding instead of a smooth, firm one.

“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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