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Dessert

Berlin Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with flour, milk, sugar, butter, eggs, lemon peel, and served with cherry or plum sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Berlin Pudding

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Berlin Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Mix flour with milk, sugar, and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Simmer until it begins to thicken.

Prepare the creamed mixture

  1. Beat 5 oz. of butter to a cream in a bowl.

  2. Add a pinch of salt and the pounded lemon peel.

  3. Separate the eggs, beating the yolks and whites until frothy.

  4. Combine with the thickened milk mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a basin.

  2. Bake in the oven until set, or boil if preferred.

  3. Serve with cherry or plum sauce.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the milk mixture and gives the pudding its body once set.
Eggs
Set on heating to give the pudding its firm, sliceable structure.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture to the pudding.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens with flour and sets with eggs.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and contributes to its browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Simmer until it begins to thicken. Flour must be fully cooked in the hot milk to thicken properly and lose its raw starchy taste. Stopping too early leaves a floury texture, while overcooking can make the base lumpy or stiff before the eggs are added.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, sugar, butter, 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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