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Dessert

Buttermilk Pudding

A baked pudding made from milk, buttermilk, sugar, lemon, roll, nutmeg, almonds, butter, cream, eggs, sweet wine, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Buttermilk Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the curd

  1. Warm the milk and mix it with the buttermilk.

  2. Drain the curd through a sieve and let it dry.

Make the mixture

  1. Pound the curd in a marble mortar with sugar, lemon, grated roll, nutmeg, almonds, warm butter, cream, egg yolks, egg whites, sweet wine, and brandy until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into well-buttered small cups or bowls.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until set.

  2. If the bottom is not brown, use a salamander to finish.

  3. Serve immediately with pudding 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.

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. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

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

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

  5. Buttermilk + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Buttermilk
Its acidity curdles the warm milk, forming the curd that becomes the pudding's body.
Egg yolks
Egg yolks enrich the mixture and help it set firm when baked.
Egg whites
Whites add lift and help the pudding set with a lighter, tender texture.
Butter
Warm butter adds richness and a tender, moist crumb to the pudding.
Heavy cream
Cream adds fat, making the pudding smoother and richer in texture.
Sugar
Sugar sweetens the pudding and aids browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Baking until set. Egg proteins coagulate as they heat, so the pudding sets firm when baked gently. Overbaking causes the eggs to curdle and weep, leaving a grainy texture.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, buttermilk, sugar, nutmeg, almond, butter, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, buttermilk, sugar, nutmeg, almond, butter, 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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