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Dessert

German Pudding

A custard-like dessert made with eggs, milk, flour, butter, sugar, and wine, baked and served with a buttery sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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German Pudding

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 ↓

German Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the pudding

  1. Beat the egg yolks until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the milk, flour, butter, nutmeg, and salt to the yolks and mix well.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold them into the mixture.

  4. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, cream together the sugar and softened butter.

  2. Add the egg, wine, and nutmeg to the butter mixture and heat over medium until it comes to a boil.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

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

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Egg yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites lift it for a light texture.
Flour
Starch thickens the batter and gives the baked pudding its body and structure.
Milk
Provides liquid and moisture that sets with the eggs and flour as the pudding bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavor and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and helps it blend smoothly with the creamed butter.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites hold air only when beaten to stiff peaks. Stirring them in vigorously knocks out that air, so the pudding rises less and bakes up denser. Fold gently, in stages, to keep the batter light.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Jalapenofits less well

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

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