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Dessert

Buttermilk Pudding

A custard-like pudding made from milk, buttermilk, sugar, lemon, grated roll, nutmeg, almonds, butter, cream, eggs, sweet 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

Make the curd

  1. Warm the milk and mix it with buttermilk.

  2. Drain the curd through a sieve and pound it in a mortar until dry.

Mix and bake

  1. Combine the curd with sugar, lemon, grated roll, nutmeg, almonds, warm butter, cream, egg yolks, egg whites, sweet wine, and brandy.

  2. Mix well and pour into well-buttered small cups or bowls.

  3. Bake until set; if the bottom is not brown, use a salamander.

Serve

  1. 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 becomes the body of the pudding.
Egg yolks
Their proteins set when baked, giving the pudding a rich, custardy structure.
Egg whites
Their proteins set on heating, adding lightness and helping the pudding hold its shape.
Warm butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist texture.
Heavy cream
Adds fat and moisture, making the pudding softer and richer.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Drain and pound the curd until dry. Excess whey left in the curd would thin the mixture and stop it setting firmly when baked, so the curd must be well drained and dried.

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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