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Dessert

Cocoa-Nut Pudding

A custard pudding made with milk, stale bread crumbs, cocoa nut, eggs, sugar, lemon juice, baked in a water bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Cocoa-Nut Pudding

Why it works: Milk and cocoa work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 643 recipes. Both carry methyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Cocoa-Nut Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the custard

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine the milk and grated cocoa nut.

  3. In another bowl, beat the egg yolks and mix in half the sugar.

  4. Add the bread crumbs to the egg yolk mixture, stirring gently.

  5. Pour the mixture into a baking dish.

Bake and top

  1. Bake in a water bath for 30 to 40 minutes until the custard is firm but not separating.

  2. Spread a layer of ripe fruit on top, then cover with meringue made from the egg whites, remaining sugar, and lemon juice.

  3. Return to the oven and brown slightly.

  4. Serve nearly cold, with or without cream.

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.

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.

  1. Milk + cocoatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Bread + cocoatop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard and whites form the meringue topping.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the liquid and give the pudding body and a soft crumb.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs set into a custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps stabilise the meringue.
Cocoa nut
Adds its own flavour and moisture to the milk base.

The step that matters

Bake in a water bath until just firm. Gentle, even heat keeps the egg custard smooth. Overbaking or direct heat makes the eggs tighten and weep liquid, so the custard separates and turns grainy.

Swap the cocoa

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, bread, sugar, egg, lemon):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Peasfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, bread, sugar, egg, lemon. 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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