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Dessert

Buttermilk Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with milk, buttermilk, sugar, lemon, breadcrumbs, nutmeg, almonds, butter, cream, eggs, 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

Make the curd

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

  2. Drain the curd through a sieve and pound it in a mortar until dry.

Mix and bake

  1. Add sugar, boiled lemon, roll crumbs, nutmeg, almonds, butter, cream, egg yolks, and egg whites to the curd. Mix well and pour into well-buttered small cups or bowls.

  2. Bake until set, and 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 acid curdles the warm milk, forming the curd that gives the pudding its body.
Egg yolks
Fat and emulsifiers enrich the custard and help it set smooth and tender when baked.
Egg whites
Coagulating proteins give the pudding structure and lift as it bakes and sets.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing moisture and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds to its browning as it bakes.

The step that matters

Drain and pound the curd until dry. Excess whey left in the curd makes the pudding watery and prevents it from setting firmly when baked.

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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