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Dessert

Benson Hill’s Almond Pudding

A baked almond pudding made with sweet and bitter almonds, butter, cream, lemon peel, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon 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 ↓

Benson Hill’s Almond Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Blanch the sweet and bitter almonds.

  2. Beat them into a paste in a mortar, adding orange-flower water as needed.

Make the filling

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the cream and almond paste.

  3. Add the grated lemon peel and the egg yolks, mixing well.

Bake

  1. Line a deep dish with puff pastry.

  2. Fill the dish with the mixture.

  3. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 40 minutes.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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 nutty body and texture of the pudding filling.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a smooth, tender texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, helping the filling set softly when baked.
Egg yolks
Thicken the filling as they set and add richness and colour.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken the filling as it heats. Mixing them in well keeps the custard-like mixture smooth and evenly set, rather than leaving streaks or lumps.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raspberryfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, butter, cream, lemon, 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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