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Dessert

Oswego Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with milk, corn starch, eggs, sugar, vanilla, topped with currant jelly and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Oswego Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks in a bowl and mix with a little milk and corn starch.

  2. Sweeten and flavor the mixture with vanilla.

  3. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

  4. Add the egg mixture to the scalded milk and cook for 3 minutes, stirring constantly.

  5. Pour the mixture into a dish and let it cool.

Top and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites with sugar in another bowl until stiff peaks form.

  2. Once the pudding is cool, cover it with a layer of currant jelly and spread the beaten egg whites over the top.

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. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

Milk
Forms the body of the pudding, which thickens as it cooks with the starch and egg.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the pudding its set body.
Eggs
Egg yolks help thicken the custard, while whites whipped to stiff peaks form the topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the beaten egg whites hold their stiff peaks.
Currant jelly
Adds tart fruit flavor and a glossy layer between the pudding and the meringue.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg and milk mixture. Stirring constantly while it cooks keeps the egg proteins from clumping or scrambling on the bottom of the pan, so the custard stays smooth and thickens evenly as the starch gelatinizes.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, corn, egg, sugar, vanilla):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, corn, egg, sugar, vanilla. 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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