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Dessert

Adelaide Puddings

A steamed pudding made with butter, sugar, eggs, bitter almonds, and preserve.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,245 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Adelaide Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine butter, sugar, and eggs in a bowl.

  2. Whip the egg whites separately.

  3. Add bitter almonds to the mixture, ensuring it is not too soft.

  4. Butter and line a pudding mold with paper.

Assemble and steam

  1. Layer the mixture in the mold, adding a little preserve between layers until full. Avoid adding too much jam to prevent leakage.

  2. Tie the mold tightly and steam for 1.5 hours.

  3. Remove the pudding 5 minutes before serving.

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. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and, when whipped, add lightness and structure to the pudding.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender, moist crumb to the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps give the mixture its body.
Preserve
Adds fruity sweetness and moisture between the layers.

The step that matters

Adding the preserve. Too much preserve can seep out during steaming and cause leakage, so add it sparingly between layers and keep the mold tightly tied.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Filbertfits less well
  4. Walnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg. 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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