Name: Almond Pudding
Ingredients: 2 pounds blanched almonds; ½ cup cream; ½ pound sugar; 1 cup butter; 7 egg whites; ¼ cup grated bread or sponge cake; ⅓ cup wine or rose water

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Almond Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

Pound the blanched almonds with a little cream.
Beat together the sugar and butter until smooth.
Add the egg whites and mix well.
Incorporate the grated bread or sponge cake.
Wet the mixture with wine or rose water.

Bake

Pour into a baking dish and bake 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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,245 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,645 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Blanched almonds: Provide the main body and rich flavor of the pudding.
Egg whites: Set during baking to give the pudding its structure.
Butter: Adds richness and a tender, moist texture.
Sugar: Sweetens the pudding and helps it brown lightly.
Grated bread or sponge cake: Absorbs liquid and lightens the texture of the batter.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Egg whites set as they heat, so underbaking leaves the pudding wet and loose while overbaking can make it dry and rubbery.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sugar, butter, egg, bread, wine):

Almondthe original
Pecansfits about as well
Chestnutfits about as well
Peasfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, butter, egg, bread, wine. 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.