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Dessert

Madeleine Puddings

Madeleine puddings are small sponge cakes filled with apricot jam and pounded almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Madeleine Puddings

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pans

  1. Clarify 1 ounce of butter and skim it.

  2. Fill round tin patty pans almost to the brim with the clarified butter, leaving ½ teaspoon in each.

Bake

  1. Mix the remaining butter with eggs, sugar, and flour, and beat lightly.

  2. Fill the pans about two-thirds full and bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 to 18 minutes.

  3. Turn out the puddings and drain on paper.

Fill and serve

  1. Once cold, hollow out the tops with a knife and fill with a mixture of apricot jam and pounded almonds.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Apricot + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + apricottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,458 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Set and bind the batter, giving the puddings structure and lift.
Flour
Provides the framework that holds the batter's shape as it bakes.
Clarified butter
Adds richness and a tender, crisp-edged texture as it fries the batter edges.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the outside brown during baking.
Apricot jam
Adds sweetness, fruity acidity and moisture to the filling.
Pounded almonds
Adds nutty aroma and a rich, dense texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Baking in a brisk oven. The batter must be fully baked in the short 15 to 18 minutes at high heat. The high heat sets the eggs and flour quickly so the puddings rise and hold their shape, while overbaking dries them out.

Swap the apricot

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

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

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