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Dessert

Boiled Puddings

A steamed milk and egg yolk pudding flavored with vanilla, cream, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Boiled Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Butter a mold or basin that will hold the mixture.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, heat the milk with the vanilla pod.

  2. Whisk the egg yolks.

  3. Gradually pour in the hot milk while stirring briskly to prevent curdling.

  4. Add the cream and sugar. Mix well.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into the prepared mold.

  2. Cover with buttered paper.

  3. Tie a cloth over it.

  4. Steam for 1 hour.

  5. Let it stand for at least 5 minutes before turning it out.

  6. Garnish with preserved barberries.

  7. Serve with a rich fruit syrup or melted fruit jelly.

  8. Consider using bitter almonds, lemon rind, or noyau instead of vanilla.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Vanilla + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Egg yolks set the custard and give it a rich, smooth texture when steamed.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that the egg yolks thicken into a custard.
Cream
Adds fat, which gives the pudding a richer, softer texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and adds to its tender texture.

The step that matters

Gradually pour in the hot milk while stirring briskly. Adding hot milk to the yolks slowly, while stirring, warms them gently so they do not scramble and curdle. Rapid or unstirred mixing causes the egg proteins to set in lumps, spoiling the smooth custard.

“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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