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Dessert

Delmonico Pudding

Layered custard pudding with ladyfingers, guava jelly, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Delmonico Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk.

  2. Thicken the milk with the beaten egg yolks, sugar, and corn starch, then set aside to cool.

Assemble and chill

  1. Soak half of the lady fingers in sherry and place them in a bowl.

  2. Pour the custard over the lady fingers, then add one box of finely cut guava jelly.

  3. Layer the remaining lady fingers soaked in sherry on top.

  4. Add the whipped cream and the other box of guava jelly sliced thinly on top.

  5. Chill in the refrigerator and serve when cold.

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

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

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  4. Milk + guavatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the milk into a custard that sets softly and adds richness.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk into a smooth custard layer.
Lady fingers
Soak up sherry and custard to form the soft, layered base.
Whipped cream
Adds airy, rich moisture to the top layer.
Guava jelly
Adds sweetness and fruity flavor between and over the layers.

The step that matters

Thicken the milk with the egg yolks and corn starch. Egg yolks and starch must be heated gently while stirring, since the yolks can scramble and the starch needs heat to thicken. Once cooled, the custard sets smoothly rather than lumpy or grainy.

Swap the guava

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, sherry, sugar, cream, corn):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Guavathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sherry, sugar, cream, corn. 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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