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Dessert

Viennoise Pudding

A steamed bread pudding made with diced bread, sugar, sultanas, candied peel, almonds, lemon rind, egg yolks, milk, sherry, and caramel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Viennoise Pudding

Why it works: Almond and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Viennoise Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds and custard base

  1. Blanch, shred, and bake the almonds until well browned.

  2. Heat the milk and add enough caramel to make it a deep nut-brown color, then pour it onto the well-beaten egg yolks, stirring continuously.

Combine and steam

  1. Mix the bread dice, sugar, sultanas, candied peel, almonds, and lemon rind together.

  2. Add the sherry and prepared milk to the mixture, cover, and let it stand for 1 hour.

  3. Turn the mixture into a well-buttered mold and steam for about 2 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with German custard, arrowroot, or another suitable sauce.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Almond + sherrytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together517 recipes

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

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

White bread
Soaks up the liquid and gives the pudding its body and soft crumb.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help set the pudding into a tender, sliceable texture.
Milk
Provides the liquid that soaks the bread and sets with the eggs during steaming.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds to its moist, tender texture.
Caramel or burnt sugar
Colors the milk a deep nut-brown and adds a bittersweet caramel flavor.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma that deepen the fruit and caramel flavors.

The step that matters

Steaming the mixture for about 2 hours. Steam heat must set the egg-thickened custard gently and evenly. A mold that is poorly buttered can stick, and an overly vigorous boil can make the texture coarse or watery.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, almond, egg, milk, sherry. 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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