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Dessert

Buttermilk Pudding

A custard-like pudding made from curdled milk, sugar, lemon, roll crumb, nutmeg, almonds, butter, cream, eggs, sweet 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 in a pot.

  2. Add the buttermilk to the warm milk and let it curdle.

  3. Drain the curd through a sieve and let it dry.

Make the pudding mixture

  1. Pound the curd in a mortar with sugar, lemon, roll crumb, nutmeg, almonds, butter, and cream until well combined.

  2. Incorporate the egg yolks and whites, sweet wine, and brandy.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into well-buttered small cups or bowls.

  2. Bake until set.

  3. 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
Curdles with the warm milk to form the curd that gives the pudding its body.
New milk
Forms the curd base and adds moisture and richness to the pudding.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and help it set when baked.
Egg whites
Add structure and lightness, helping the pudding set when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the curd and lemon.

The step that matters

Drain and dry the curd. If the curd stays too wet, excess whey dilutes the mixture and the pudding may not set properly when baked. Draining well gives a firmer, more cohesive base.

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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