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Dessert

Almond Pudding

A baked almond custard made with butter, sugar, eggs, sweet and bitter almonds, and rose-water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,245 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Almond Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Blanch the almonds.

  2. Pound the blanched almonds in a mortar with a little rose-water to make a paste.

  3. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  4. Whisk the eggs.

  5. Mix all ingredients together.

Bake

  1. Line your pie plates with pastry.

  2. Fill the pastry-lined plates with the mixture.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to add richness and a tender, fine crumb.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the pudding its structure.
Sweet almonds
Pounded into a paste to give the pudding its body and nutty flavour.
Bitter almonds
Add a sharp, concentrated almond aroma to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps cream the butter to a light texture.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs set as their proteins coagulate with heat. Pulling the pudding too early leaves a runny centre, while overbaking makes it dry and grainy.

“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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