Why it works: Wine and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,427 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓
Almond 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.
Prepare the almond paste
Scald and peel the sweet and bitter almonds, then pound them in a mortar to a fine paste.
Make the batter
Cream the butter and sugar together, then gradually mix in the wine and brandy.
Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold them into the butter mixture along with the almond paste.
Pour the mixture into a buttered dish and place puff pastry around the edge.
Bake and serve
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour, then grate sugar over the top before serving.
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.
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Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,427 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
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Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,245 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + winetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,645 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,127 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Almond + brandytop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,969 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sweet almonds
- Provide the main body and rich nutty flavour of the pudding.
- Egg whites
- Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air and give the pudding a light, set structure.
- Fresh butter
- Creamed with the sugar to add richness and a tender, moist texture.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and helps cream the butter to a smooth base.
- Brandy
- Adds aroma and flavour depth to the batter.
The step that matters
Folding in the egg whites. Stiff whites hold air that makes the pudding light; stirring them vigorously deflates the foam, so fold gently with a spatula to keep the texture airy.
“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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