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Dessert

Delmonico Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with milk, sugar, corn starch, egg yolks, and egg whites, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Delmonico Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk and sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Dissolve the corn starch in a little milk.

  3. Stir the dissolved corn starch into the boiling mixture.

  4. Add the beaten egg yolks and mix well.

Bake the base

  1. Bake for 20 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

Top and brown

  1. Beat the egg whites until nearly stiff, then add the white sugar and mix.

  2. Pour the egg white mixture over the pudding.

  3. Return to the oven until golden brown.

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens into the custard.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps stabilize the beaten egg whites.
Corn starch
Thickens the hot milk into a smooth, sliceable custard.
Egg yolks
Enrich and further thicken the custard as they set with heat.
Egg whites
Beaten into foam, they set in the oven as a light topping that browns.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until nearly stiff. Whites beaten to the right point hold a foam that bakes into a light topping. Under-beaten whites stay runny and slump, while over-beaten whites turn dry and grainy.

“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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