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Dessert

Buttermilk Pudding

A baked pudding made with milk, buttermilk, sugar, lemon, roll, nutmeg, almonds, butter, cream, eggs, wine, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Buttermilk Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the curd

  1. Warm the new milk and mix in the buttermilk.

  2. Drain the curd through a sieve.

  3. Pound it in a mortar until dry.

Make the batter

  1. Add sugar, boiled lemon, grated roll, grated nutmeg, bitter almonds, warm butter, cream, egg yolks, egg whites, sweet wine, and brandy.

  2. Mix well.

  3. Pour into well-buttered small cups or bowls.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until the bottom is brown, using a salamander if necessary.

  2. Serve immediately with pudding 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. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Buttermilk + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Buttermilk
Its acidity curdles the warm milk, forming the curd that gives the pudding its body.
Egg yolks
Enrich the batter and help it set into a tender, custard-like texture when baked.
Egg whites
Add structure and lightness as they set during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the bottom brown in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and contributes to browning on the surface.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving a smoother, softer crumb.

The step that matters

Pound the curd until dry. If the curd keeps too much whey, the batter becomes watery and the pudding may not set firmly. Draining and pounding remove excess liquid so the mixture holds its shape when baked.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, buttermilk, sugar, nutmeg, almond, butter, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, buttermilk, sugar, nutmeg, almond, butter, cream. 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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