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Dessert

Pound-Cake Pudding

A steamed pudding made with diced pound cake, broken macaroons, and a custard mixture of egg yolks, cream, milk, noeau, orange flower water, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Pound-Cake Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Lightly mix the diced cake and broken macaroons in a pint mold.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with cream, milk, noyeau, orange flower water, and sugar until combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into the mold until just full.

  4. Let it stand for 1 hour before steaming.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for 1.5 hours.

  2. Serve with a sweet 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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Orange + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and sugar 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

Pound cake
Provides the bulk and body that the custard soaks into and sets around.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and set it into a tender, sliceable texture when steamed.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the custard a softer, smoother mouthfeel.
Macaroons
Add almond flavour and chewy pieces that soften as they soak up the custard.
Noyeau
Adds a bittersweet almond aroma that flavours the custard.

The step that matters

Steaming the pudding. Egg custard sets gently with steady, moderate heat. Too much heat or boiling makes the eggs curdle and the texture grainy or spongy rather than smooth.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, milk, sugar. 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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