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Dessert

Vermicelli Pudding

A baked pudding made from vermicelli, milk, cinnamon, cream, butter, sugar, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Vermicelli Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the custard

  1. Boil the vermicelli in the milk with the cinnamon until soft.

  2. Stir in the thick cream, butter, sugar, and beaten egg yolks.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish without a crust.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

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

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Vermicelli
Softens in the milk to give the pudding its body and tender bite.
Whole milk
Cooks the vermicelli and forms the liquid base that gives the pudding its creamy moisture.
Thick cream
Adds fat and richness, producing a smooth, velvety texture.
Butter
Contributes fat for richness and a tender, silky mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown lightly during baking.
Egg yolks
Thicken and set as they heat, giving the pudding its structure.

The step that matters

Bake until just set. Egg yolk proteins set as they heat and thicken the custard. Too much heat makes the eggs tighten, leaving the pudding grainy, watery, or rubbery, so remove it once the centre is just set.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonthe original
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

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