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Dessert

Ratafia Pudding

A milk pudding thickened with eggs, cornstarch, and sugar, topped with ratafias and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,655 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Ratafia Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Scald the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Beat together the sugar, eggs, and cornstarch.

  3. Stir the mixture into the scalding milk.

  4. When it thickens, pour it into a well-buttered pudding dish.

Bake

  1. Cover the top with the ratafias, right side up.

  2. Bake for 30 minutes.

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. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Set the custard and add richness and structure as it cooks.
Cornstarch
Thickens the custard so it holds its shape when cooled.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the flavor.
Ratafias
Sit on top of the custard and add flavor and a crisp, browned surface during baking.

The step that matters

Stir the egg mixture into the scalding milk. Adding the egg and cornstarch mixture to hot milk gradually, while stirring, keeps the eggs from scrambling and lets the custard thicken smoothly.

“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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