Skip to main content
Dessert

Semolina Cup Puddings

A sweet semolina pudding served in cups, flavored with lemon rind and topped with nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Semolina Cup Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a pan, heat the milk with butter and sugar until boiling.

  2. Mix semolina with enough milk to achieve a thick cream consistency.

  3. Pour the semolina mixture into the boiling milk, stirring well until thick.

  4. Pour into small cups rinsed in cold water and let cool.

Serve

  1. Turn out the puddings onto a glass dish.

  2. Pour a flavored custard over the puddings and grate nutmeg on top.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Semolina + nutmegtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together53 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Lemon + semolinatop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together124 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Semolina
Thickens the hot milk into a firm pudding that holds its shape when turned out.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the semolina swells and sets in.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, soft mouthfeel to the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the flavor.

The step that matters

Stirring the semolina into the boiling milk. Semolina must be stirred constantly as it goes in, or it clumps and cooks unevenly. Thickening happens as the starch granules swell and gelatinize in hot liquid, so the mixture needs steady stirring until it is thick.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Parsleyfits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, sugar, lemon, semolina. 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.

More semolina pudding recipes

French 8Baked 3Steamed 3 See all 112 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes