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Dessert

Alexandra Pudding

A custard pudding made with eggs, sugar, milk, cream, and vanilla, baked in a water bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Alexandra Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Boil a saucepan of warm water.

  2. Separate the yolks of 10 eggs into a basin and place the whites of 5 eggs in another basin.

  3. Stir 2 ounces of castor sugar into the yolks.

  4. Add ½ cup of milk and ½ pint of cream to the yolk mixture.

  5. Whip the whites of the 5 eggs slightly.

Mold and steam

  1. Butter a plain tin mold (about 1½ pints) and cover the bottom with buttered paper.

  2. Gently fold the whipped egg whites and 1 teaspoon of vanilla into the yolk mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture through a strainer into the mold and cover it with stiff paper tied with string.

  4. When the water boils, place the mold in the saucepan, ensuring the water reaches halfway up the mold.

  5. Simmer gently for about 1 hour and 15 minutes until the pudding is firm; do not let it boil fast.

Cool and serve

  1. Remove the pudding from the saucepan and cool it in ice.

  2. To serve, remove the buttered paper and carefully turn the pudding onto a dish, garnishing with red currant jelly as desired.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich and set the custard, while whipped whites lighten it and give it structure.
Cream
Adds fat for a rich, smooth, tender texture.
Milk
Adds liquid that loosens the custard and keeps it moist as it sets.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the set texture of the custard.

The step that matters

Simmer gently, never at a fast boil. Egg custard sets through gentle heat. Vigorous boiling makes the egg proteins tighten too quickly, leaving the pudding porous, rubbery, or cracked.

“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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