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Dessert

Vermicelli Pudding

A baked pudding made with vermicelli, milk, butter, eggs, sugar, brandy, and spiced with cinnamon, lemon peel, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Vermicelli Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pudding base

  1. Boil the vermicelli in milk until it absorbs the milk.

  2. In a bowl, combine the cooked vermicelli with butter, beaten eggs (reserve 3 whites), sugar, and brandy.

  3. Boil cinnamon, lemon peel, and nutmeg in a little milk.

  4. Strain the spiced milk into the mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish lined with puff pastry on the edge.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F/175°C) until set.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  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

Vermicelli
Forms the body of the pudding, absorbing milk and setting into a soft, tender texture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set on baking, giving the pudding its structure.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the vermicelli absorbs and that sets with the eggs, keeping the pudding moist.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to a smooth, tender crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the eggs and spices.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour to the custard base.

The step that matters

Baking until set. Egg proteins set as they heat, so underbaking leaves the pudding loose and wet in the centre, while overbaking can make it dry and rubbery. Watch for a firm, just-set centre.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, egg, sugar, brandy, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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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