Skip to main content
Dessert

Children's Favorite Dessert

A layered dessert of ladyfingers, jelly, sweet cream, and meringue, served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Children's Favorite Dessert

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 base

  1. Line a pudding dish with lady fingers, placing jelly between each.

Make the custard

  1. In a kettle, boil the sweet cream slowly, stirring constantly.

  2. Mix cornstarch with cold milk, then stir it into the boiling cream.

  3. Beat the egg yolks until light, then stir them into the cream mixture.

  4. Once cool, flavor with vanilla and pour over the lady fingers.

Top, bake and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, sweeten, and cover the pudding with meringue.

  2. Brown the meringue in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

  3. Serve cold with whipped cream.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Lady fingers
Form the sponge-like base layer that soaks up the custard and holds the pudding's shape.
Sweet cream
Provides richness and fat, giving the custard a smooth, creamy body.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness and colour as they set with gentle heat.
Egg whites
Whipped into stiff peaks to form a light meringue that browns on top.
Cornstarch
Thickens the boiling cream so the custard holds its body when cool.

The step that matters

Stirring the yolks into the cream mixture. Egg yolks can scramble if added to hot liquid without tempering or constant stirring, leaving a grainy custard instead of a smooth one. Keep stirring and add them gently so the custard thickens evenly.

“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.

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes