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Dessert

Albany Pudding

A steamed pudding made with tapioca, milk, stale sponge cakes, almonds, eggs, sugar, and ratafia.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Albany Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Soak the tapioca in milk for 1 hour.

  2. Simmer the soaked tapioca in a pan until soft.

  3. Pound the sponge cakes and mix with the tapioca and milk.

  4. Set the mixture aside to cool.

Make the pudding

  1. Beat the eggs with the sugar, adding one egg at a time.

  2. Combine all ingredients and flavor with ratafia.

  3. Pour into a buttered mold and steam for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Serve

  1. Turn out and serve with wine sauce.

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

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

  2. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  3. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 help it set into a firm, sliceable pudding when steamed.
Tapioca
Thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the pudding a soft, tender body.
Sponge cakes
Add bulk and soft crumb that soaks up the milk and eggs.
Ground sweet almonds
Contribute nutty aroma and a richer, slightly oily texture to the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the eggs whisk to a lighter batter.

The step that matters

Beat the eggs with the sugar, adding one egg at a time. Adding eggs gradually lets each one emulsify fully into the batter, so the mixture stays smooth instead of splitting or curdling and the final texture stays even.

Swap the almond

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

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

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

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