Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
To Boil a Custard Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard
Take 1 pint of cream and reserve 2–3 tablespoons.
Mix the reserved cream with 1 tablespoon of fine flour.
Bring the remaining cream to a boil.
Remove from heat and stir in the cold cream and flour mixture until well combined.
Let the mixture cool.
Beat in 5 egg yolks and 2 egg whites, along with ¼ teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon nutmeg, and 2 tablespoons of sack.
Sweeten to taste.
Boil and serve
Butter a wooden bowl.
Pour the mixture into the bowl.
Tie a cloth over the bowl.
Boil the pudding for 30 minutes.
Untie the cloth and turn the pudding out onto a dish.
Pour melted butter over it.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,920 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,645 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Flour and butter 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
- Cream
- Provides richness and body, and thickens into a smooth custard when heated.
- Fine flour
- Thickens the cream and gives the pudding a firmer, more stable structure.
- Egg yolks
- Set the custard through heat and add richness and a smooth, tender texture.
- Egg whites
- Add protein that helps the pudding set and hold its shape when boiled.
The step that matters
Stirring the cold cream and flour into the hot cream. Adding the flour mixture off the heat and stirring it in well keeps the thickening smooth and lump-free. Lumps form when flour meets very hot liquid without being evenly dispersed first.
“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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