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Dessert

Oswego Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with milk, corn starch, eggs, sugar, vanilla, topped with currant jelly and meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Oswego Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks in a bowl.

  2. Mix the beaten yolks with a little milk and corn starch.

  3. Scald the milk in a saucepan.

  4. Add the yolk mixture to the scalded milk.

  5. Sweeten with sugar.

  6. Flavor with vanilla.

  7. Boil the mixture for three minutes.

  8. Pour the mixture into a dish and let it cool.

Top and finish

  1. Beat the egg whites in a separate bowl until stiff.

  2. Gradually add sugar to the beaten egg whites.

  3. Spread a layer of currant jelly over the cooled pudding.

  4. Top with the beaten egg whites.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard and whites, beaten stiff, form the light topping.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk mixture as it heats, giving the pudding body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that sets as it cools.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and stabilizes the beaten egg whites.
Currant jelly
Adds a tart-sweet fruit layer between the custard and the topping.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for three minutes. Cornstarch only thickens fully once it reaches a boil, and the egg yolks must be heated enough to thicken without scrambling. Stirring constantly while it heats helps prevent lumps and scorching.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, corn, egg, vanilla, 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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