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Dessert

Semolina Pudding

A baked milk and semolina pudding sweetened with sugar and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Semolina and sugar work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 351 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Semolina Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the semolina base

  1. Combine milk, a pinch of salt, and the bay leaf in a saucepan. Bring to a boil.

  2. Sprinkle in the semolina and cook gently for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool slightly. Discard the bay leaf.

Bake and serve

  1. Stir in the sugar and the egg yolks, then fold in the stiffly whisked egg whites.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered pie dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 25 to 30 minutes.

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. Semolina + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together351 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. Milk + semolinatop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together316 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Semolina
Thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the pudding its body and a soft set.
Eggs
Egg yolks enrich and help set the custard, while whipped whites lighten the texture as it bakes.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the semolina swells in and that sets into the pudding.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and a soft, slightly caramel flavor.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Stiffly whisked whites trap air that gives the pudding its lightness. Stirring them in vigorously knocks out that air, so the pudding bakes up denser and flatter.

“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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