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Dessert

Delmonico Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with milk, corn starch, eggs, sugar, and vanilla, baked and topped with browned whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Delmonico Pudding

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 custard

  1. In a bowl, mix corn starch with a little cold milk.

  2. Heat the remaining milk until just before boiling, then stir in the corn starch mixture.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks with 6 tablespoons of sugar and 20 drops of vanilla.

  4. Combine the yolk mixture with the milk mixture.

Bake and top

  1. In another bowl, beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, adding 3 tablespoons of sugar and 5 drops of vanilla.

  2. Pour the pudding mixture into a baking dish and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for a few minutes to set.

  3. Spread the beaten egg whites on top and return to the oven to brown slightly.

Serve

  1. Serve chilled, optionally adding a spoonful of chocolate to the frosting.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 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. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla 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

Corn starch
Thickens the milk into a smooth custard as it heats with the liquid.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and gives it body and creaminess.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and help set the custard; whites whip into a light topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the egg whites hold stiff peaks.

The step that matters

Adding the corn starch mixture to the hot milk. Starch only thickens once heated in liquid, so the milk must be hot enough for the starch to swell. Adding it unevenly or without mixing can leave lumps in the custard.

“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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