Skip to main content
Dessert

Almond Puddings

A baked almond custard made with sweet and bitter almonds, butter, eggs, flour, sugar, spices, cream, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Almond and nutmeg 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 ↓

Almond Puddings

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.

Prepare the batter

  1. Pound the sweet and bitter almonds in a mortar with the rose water or cold water.

  2. Rub in the softened butter until well combined.

  3. Add the egg yolks, flour, powdered sugar, and spices; mix well.

  4. Stir in the cream and brandy until smooth.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into buttered tea cups or a dish lined with puff pastry.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

  3. Serve with pudding or lemon 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. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds
Form the bulk of the pudding and give it a rich, nutty flavour.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving a tender, moist texture.
Eggs
Yolks enrich the mixture and help it set as it bakes.
All-purpose flour
Gives the pudding body and helps it hold its shape.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the pudding and blends smoothly into the mixture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the pudding soft and custardy.

The step that matters

Baking the pudding. Egg proteins set with heat, so the pudding turns firm as it bakes. Baking too long over-sets the eggs, leaving the texture dry, grainy, or curdled.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, rose, butter, egg, flour, sugar, cream):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, rose, butter, egg, flour, sugar, 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.

More almond pudding recipes

Baked 26Boiled 20Lemon 13Chocolate 6Chestnut 5Frozen 3 See all 210 →

You might also like

Brandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipesAlmond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesAlmond WafersAlmond Wafers22 recipes