Name: Curd Puddings, or Puffs
Ingredients: 2 quarts milk; 4 ounces butter; crumb of a penny loaf (about 1 slice of bread); 2 tablespoons cream; ½ nutmeg, grated; a small quantity of sugar (to taste); 2 tablespoons white wine; orange-flower water (optional)

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Curd Puddings, or Puffs

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the curd

Turn the milk into curd and press the whey from it.
Rub the curd through a sieve.

Mix and fill

Mix in the butter, bread crumb, cream, grated nutmeg, sugar, and white wine.
Butter small cups or pattypans and fill them three-quarters full.
Add orange-flower water if desired.

Bake and serve

Bake in a moderate oven at 350 °F (175 °C) until set.
Serve with sweet sauce on the side.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Nutmeg + orangetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,746 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,083 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Milk: Forms the curd, which gives the pudding its body and soft set.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, giving a tender, moist texture.
Bread crumb: Soaks up liquid and adds body, helping the mixture hold its shape.
Cream: Adds fat and smoothness, making the pudding richer and softer.
White wine: Adds a gentle acidity that brightens the flavour of the rich custard.

The step that matters

Rub the curd through a sieve. Pressing the curd smooth removes lumps and strands, so the baked pudding sets evenly with a fine, uniform texture.

Swap the orange

The recipe marks orange as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, bread, cream, nutmeg, sugar, white wine):

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Applefits better
Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, bread, cream, nutmeg, sugar, white wine. 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.