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Dessert

Vermicelli Pudding

A baked milk pudding with vermicelli, sugar, butter, eggs, lemon rind, and brandy, topped with clarified butter and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Vermicelli 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 custard base

  1. Drop the vermicelli into the boiling milk and simmer gently for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally until thick.

  2. Mix in the sugar, butter, and salt until well blended.

  3. Beat the mixture for a couple of minutes to cool it slightly.

  4. Gradually add the whisked eggs and lemon rind.

Bake and serve

  1. Just before baking, stir in the brandy.

  2. Pour into a baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 to 45 minutes.

  3. Top with clarified butter and sift sugar over before serving.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  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

Vermicelli
Thickens the boiled milk into a starchy, pudding-like body as it simmers.
Eggs
Set during baking to bind the pudding and give it a firm, sliceable texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the vermicelli cooks in and the eggs set within.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown lightly on top.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel to the pudding.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs gradually. Adding whisked eggs slowly to the warm mixture, after it is cooled slightly, helps prevent them from scrambling. Even distribution keeps the custard smooth and evenly set when baked.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, butter, egg, brandy. 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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