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Dessert

Pouding a LA Berlinoise

A sweet almond and egg pudding cooked by boiling or steaming.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pouding a LA Berlinoise

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Blanch, peel, and finely shred the almonds.

  2. Dry them in a cool oven.

  3. Sift the flour into a bowl, stir in half the milk, and beat to a batter.

Make the pudding

  1. In a saucepan, combine the butter and remaining milk, bring to a boil, then add the sugar.

  2. Stir in the prepared batter and keep stirring until it thickens.

  3. Pour into a bowl and let cool.

  4. Work in the egg yolks and add the almonds, beating well.

  5. Whip the egg whites until stiff and gently fold them into the mixture.

Steam and serve

  1. Fill one or two well-buttered molds, cover with buttered paper, and boil or steam for about two hours.

  2. Serve with hot raspberry syrup.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Eggs
Egg yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites lighten and give the pudding its airy structure.
Flour
Forms the batter with the milk, and its starch thickens and sets the pudding as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and gives the pudding a rich, tender texture.
Almonds
Add nutty flavor and body to the pudding.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the pudding and softens its texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that gives the pudding its lightness. Stirring them in vigorously knocks that air out, so the pudding steams up dense instead of light.

“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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