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Dessert

Cocoa Pudding

A baked pudding made with cocoa-nut, butter, sugar, cream, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cocoa Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter and sugar together until smooth.

  2. Add the grated cocoa-nut and mix well.

  3. Stir in the cream.

  4. Beat the eggs well and add to the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour into a buttered dish and bake immediately at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

  2. Sift sugar over it before serving hot or cold.

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

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

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

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

  3. Cocoa + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together548 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-undecalactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, smooth texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps soften the texture of the pudding.
Cocoa-nut
Adds flavor and moisture to the pudding.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, making the pudding softer.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set during baking to give the pudding its structure.

The step that matters

Bake immediately after adding the eggs. Eggs start to bind the mixture as soon as they are added, so the batter should go into the buttered dish and into the oven right away. Letting it stand can make the texture uneven.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits better
  3. Filbertfits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, cream, egg. 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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