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Dessert

Almond Puddings

A baked almond custard made with sweet and bitter almonds, butter, eggs, cream, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Almond Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the sweet and bitter almonds with the water until smooth.

  2. Mix in the butter until well combined.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Stir in the cream until fully incorporated.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered pan and bake until set.

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

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

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

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

  3. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Sweet almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavour of the pudding.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist texture.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the pudding its structure.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the set texture.

The step that matters

Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.. Adding eggs gradually lets each one emulsify fully into the fat and almond mixture. Adding them all at once can cause curdling or a grainy, uneven batter.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Filbertfits about as well
  4. Walnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, cream. 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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