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Almond Puddings, Small

A steamed or baked pudding made from ground almonds, eggs, sugar, cream, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Almond Puddings, Small

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Stir in the egg yolks, ground almonds, and cream.

  3. Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks and gently fold them into the mixture.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into buttered small cups or dairy moulds.

  2. Steam or bake for 25 to 30 minutes.

  3. Serve with a suitable 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  4. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Ground almonds
Provide the bulk and a moist, tender crumb in the pudding.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites lift it with trapped air.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture, and is creamed with the sugar.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness to the batter.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the butter cream to a light texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Fold the stiffly whipped whites in gently so the air they hold is not knocked out. That trapped air is what lifts the pudding as it cooks, so overmixing leaves it dense.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, cream, butter):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Filbertfits less well
  4. Pistachiofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, cream, butter. 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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