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Dessert

Cream Pudding

A custard-like dessert made with cream, eggs, almonds, mace, nutmeg, flour, 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

Make the custard

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

  2. Beat the yolks of 8 eggs with 3 whites and strain them.

  3. Mix in 1 tablespoon of flour, ¼ pound of finely beaten almonds, and 1 tablespoon of orange‑flower or rose water.

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

Boil and serve

  1. Wet a thick cloth and flour the wet cloth.

  2. Pour the mixture into the cloth and tie the cloth closed.

  3. Boil for 30 minutes, ensuring the water boils rapidly during cooking.

  4. Turn the pudding out onto a dish.

  5. Pour melted butter and a little wine over it, then sprinkle with grated 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

Eggs
Yolks and whites set the pudding into a firm, sliceable custard when boiled.
Cream
Provides richness and moisture, giving the pudding a tender, smooth texture.
Almonds
Add body and a nutty flavour, thickening the mixture slightly.
Flour
Helps bind the mixture so it holds its shape when boiled.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling rapidly. A vigorous boil keeps the water at full heat around the cloth, so the custard cooks through and sets. Weak boiling slows cooking and can leave the pudding dense or undercooked.

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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