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Dessert

Almond Pudding or Hedge Hog

A sweet almond custard pudding served over stale sponge cake or bread, decorated with almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and peach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 466 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Almond Pudding or Hedge Hog

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding base

  1. Finely grind the almonds in a mortar.

  2. In a skillet, combine ground almonds, egg yolks, egg whites, sugar, and peach water.

  3. Add peach water while beating the almonds to prevent oiling.

  4. Stir continuously until the mixture thickens.

Shape and decorate

  1. Place a piece of stale sponge cake or bread in a dish.

  2. Shape the pudding into an oval and place it on the cake.

  3. Decorate with reserved almonds, using two for ears.

Add the custard

  1. Prepare a rich boiled custard and pour it into the bottom of the dish.

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. Almond + peachtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Peach + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together55 recipes

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

  4. Almond + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together858 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetylpyrazine (roast).

  5. Sugar + peachtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Blanched almonds
Ground to form the body of the pudding, giving it bulk and a nutty flavor.
Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture as it cooks and add richness to the pudding.
Egg whites
Add lightness and help the mixture set as it thickens.
White sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps keep it moist.
Peach water
Adds aroma and moisture, and helps keep the almond mixture from separating into oil.

The step that matters

Stir continuously until the mixture thickens. Egg proteins set with heat and can curdle or scorch if the mixture is left still over direct heat. Constant stirring keeps the heat even so the pudding thickens smoothly.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, egg, sugar, bread. 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 almond pudding recipes

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