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Dessert

Muffins

A baked pudding of soaked muffins, ground almonds, preserved cherries, eggs and brandy, set in a puff paste border.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Muffins

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the milk

  1. Sweeten the milk with loaf sugar and boil with lemon peel and bay leaf for a few minutes.

  2. Break the muffins into a pudding basin and strain the flavored milk over them; let soak until cold.

Make the filling

  1. Mash the muffins until smooth, then mix in ground almonds, preserved cherries, beaten eggs, orange-flower water, brandy, and nutmeg.

  2. Butter the edges of a shallow dish and line with puff paste; spread the muffin mixture in it and bake.

  3. Serve hot or cold.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  5. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set when baked.
Muffins
Form the bulk of the pudding and soak up the flavored milk to become tender.
Milk
Soaks into the muffins and forms the moist, custard-like body of the pudding.
Preserved cherries
Add fruit sweetness and a moist, chewy texture to the filling.
Ground almonds
Add richness and body to the mixture, giving a softer, nutty texture.

The step that matters

Let the muffins soak until cold. The muffins need time to absorb the flavored milk fully; if they are mashed before they have soaked, the mixture stays lumpy and uneven, and the eggs set unevenly in the bake.

“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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