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Dessert

Caramel Pudding

A sweet pudding made with caramelized sugar, eggs, milk, and whipped egg whites, baked in a water bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Caramel Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Dissolve the loaf sugar in water over low heat.

  2. In a bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and castor sugar until well combined.

  3. Gradually add the milk to the egg mixture, stirring continuously.

  4. Pour the dissolved sugar mixture into the egg and milk mixture, stirring well.

Fold and steam

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the pudding mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  4. Tie a scalded and floured cloth over the mold and boil for 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Serve with a sweet white 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. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the milk mixture as they set, giving the pudding its rich, tender body.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that lightens the pudding's texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that sets with the eggs into a soft custard.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the richness of the eggs and milk.

The step that matters

Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the pudding mixture.. Beaten egg whites hold air in a foam. Vigorous stirring deflates that foam, which makes the pudding dense instead of light and tender.

“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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