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Dessert

Cheese Curd Pudding

A custard-like dessert made from milk curd, butter, eggs, biscuits, sugar, candied fruit, almonds, melted butter, wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Biscuit and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 388 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Cheese Curd Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the curd

  1. Turn the milk with rennet and drain off the whey.

  2. Beat the curd with the butter until well mixed.

  3. Beat the egg yolks and egg whites, then strain them into the curd.

  4. Grate the biscuits or roll and mix them in with sugar to taste.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter patty pans and fill them with the mixture.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until done.

  3. Turn the puddings out onto a dish.

  4. Cut the candied citron and orange peel into narrow slips and stick them on top.

  5. Pour melted butter, wine, and sugar over the puddings.

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. Biscuit + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together388 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Orange + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  5. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the curd that makes up the body of the pudding.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the pudding a tender, moist texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set firm when baked.
Egg whites
Add lightness and help the pudding hold its structure as it bakes.
Naples biscuits
Add body and absorb moisture, helping the mixture hold together.

The step that matters

Bake until done. Egg-enriched curd sets as its proteins coagulate with heat. Underbaking leaves it loose and wet, while overbaking makes it dry and grainy, so watch for a set centre.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, egg, biscuit, sugar, almond, wine. 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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