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Dessert

Cream Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with cream, eggs, almonds, mace, nutmeg, and flavored with orange‑flower or rose water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Cream Pudding

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 ↓

Cream Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the custard

  1. Boil the cream with mace and nutmeg, then let it cool.

  2. Beat the eggs and egg whites, strain them, and mix in the flour and ground almonds with the orange-flower or rose-water.

  3. Gradually mix in the cooled cream and stir well.

Boil and serve

  1. Wet and flour a thick cloth, pour in the mixture, tie it tightly, and boil for 30 minutes.

  2. Once done, turn it out onto a dish, pour melted butter over it, add a little wine or sack, and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

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. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Provides richness and body, setting into a soft, creamy pudding when cooked.
Eggs
Set during boiling to give the pudding its firm, tender structure.
Egg whites
Add lightness and help bind the mixture as it sets.
Flour
Thickens the mixture and helps it hold its shape when boiled.
Almonds
Add body, nutty flavour and a fine, slightly rich texture.

The step that matters

Tying the cloth. The cloth must be wet, floured and tied tightly so the mixture holds its shape and does not leak or swell loosely in the water. Boiling then sets the eggs and flour into a firm pudding.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, nutmeg, egg, flour, almond, orange, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, nutmeg, egg, flour, almond, orange, 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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