Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Baked Almond 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
Dissolve the saccharine in the water.
Beat the eggs together in a bowl.
Make the batter
Add the cream and melted butter, then stir in the ground almonds.
Mix in the brandy and dissolved saccharine.
Bake
Pour the mixture into a small pie dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 15 minutes.
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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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,245 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
-
Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,127 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Cream + brandytop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,635 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
-
Cream + almondtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,130 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and set into a tender custard structure as they bake.
- Cream
- Adds moisture and richness, keeping the pudding soft.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a tender, smooth crumb.
- Ground almonds
- Provide body and a nutty flavour and texture.
- Brandy
- Adds aroma and a warm, complex flavour to the batter.
- Saccharine
- Provides sweetness without adding sugar.
The step that matters
Bake until just set. Eggs set as they heat, and overbaking pushes them past that point, causing the custard to curdle, weep and turn rubbery. Removing the dish once the centre barely wobbles lets residual heat finish the set.
“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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