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Dessert

Ratafia Pudding

A milk pudding thickened with sugar, eggs, and corn starch, topped with ratafias.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and cinnamon work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 647 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Ratafia Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Scald the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Beat together the sugar, eggs, and corn-starch, then stir into the scalding milk.

  3. When the mixture thickens, pour it into a well-buttered pudding dish.

Bake

  1. Cover the top of the pudding with the ratafias, right side upwards.

  2. Bake for 30 minutes.

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. Corn + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + corntop 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 cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Set the custard and add richness and structure as they cook.
Corn-starch
Thickens the milk mixture so the custard holds its shape when cut.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and carries the flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps soften its texture.
Ratafias
Forms a crisp, almond-flavored topping as the pudding bakes.

The step that matters

Stir the egg and starch mixture into the hot milk and wait for it to thicken. Cornstarch thickens only when heated, and eggs can scramble if they meet very hot milk without being mixed in gently. Stirring steadily and removing the pudding from heat once it thickens keeps it smooth.

“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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