Skip to main content
Dessert

Custard Pudding

A baked or boiled custard pudding made with eggs, milk, cream, flour, sugar, spices, and brandy, served with butter sauce and jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Custard Pudding

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Custard 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

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Prepare a large saucepan of boiling water.

  3. Beat the yolks and whites of the eggs separately.

  4. Mix the yolks with the milk, cream, and flour to create a batter.

  5. Butter a basin or mold that will hold the batter.

Make and cook the pudding

  1. Just before baking, fold in the beaten egg whites, sugar, cinnamon or nutmeg, and brandy.

  2. If boiling, place the basin in the boiling water and keep it moving for several minutes to prevent settling.

  3. Boil for 30 minutes or bake for 20 minutes until set.

Serve

  1. Once done, turn out the pudding and sprinkle with fine sugar and nutmeg.

  2. Serve with melted butter or wine sauce, and garnish with raspberry jam or red currant jelly.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook and add structure and richness to the batter.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and gives it a soft, tender texture.
Rich cream
Adds fat for a richer, smoother texture and a softer set.
Flour
Thickens the batter and gives the pudding body so it holds its shape.
Fine loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown lightly on the surface.

The step that matters

Keeping the water-bath basin moving. Moving the basin in the boiling water for several minutes keeps the batter from settling and sinking to the bottom. Gentle, steady heat then sets the egg custard evenly without curdling it into a grainy texture.

Swap the cinnamon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, cream, flour, sugar, brandy, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonthe original
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, cream, flour, sugar, brandy, butter. 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.

More custard pudding recipes

Apple 27Baked 27Boiled 12Bread 12Fruit 11Chocolate 8 See all 209 →

You might also like

Raspberry JamRaspberry Jam150 recipesRaspberry CreamRaspberry Cream82 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipes