Why it works: Egg and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Macaroon 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.
Prepare the custard
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Whisk together the milk, 1 egg, 3 egg yolks, and sugar until well combined. Add flavoring to the custard mixture.
Break the macaroons into a pudding dish.
Pour the custard over the macaroons.
Bake and top
Bake until the custard sets.
Cover the pudding to prevent the macaroons from burning.
Remove the pudding from the oven.
Spread quince jelly over the top.
Beat the remaining 3 egg whites until stiff peaks form to make meringue.
Spread the meringue unevenly over the pudding.
Bake until the meringue is browned.
Drop bits of quince jelly over the browned meringue before serving.
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.
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + quincetop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together104 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + quincetop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,444 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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
- Eggs
- Yolks and whites set the custard and, when whipped, build the meringue topping.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid base that the eggs thicken into a soft custard.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard and helps the meringue stay stable and brown.
- Macaroons
- Form the base layer, soaking up custard while keeping some texture.
- Quince jelly
- Adds fruity sweetness and tartness against the custard and meringue.
The step that matters
Covering the pudding while it bakes. Macaroons on top can scorch before the custard sets, so covering shields them from direct heat. Uncovering for the meringue stage then lets the topping brown evenly.
Swap the quince
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Quincethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, sugar. 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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