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Dessert

Swiss Pudding

A steamed custard dessert made with eggs, powdered sugar, cream, and served with preserved ginger or apricot syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Swiss Pudding

Why it works: Cream and butter 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 ↓

Swiss Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Beat the eggs with the powdered sugar until frothy.

  2. Stir in the cream until well combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered mold and cover with buttered paper.

  4. Tie the paper down securely and steam for 20 minutes.

Serve

  1. Let it stand for a few minutes before turning it out.

  2. Serve cold with preserved ginger or apricot syrup around it.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cream + buttertop 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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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 structure as they cook, giving the pudding its firm body.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the pudding and dissolves easily into the beaten eggs.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, producing a softer, tender texture.

The step that matters

Tie the paper down securely and steam for 20 minutes. If the cover is loose, steam can enter the mold and make the pudding watery or uneven. A tight seal keeps the custard moist and lets it set evenly as egg proteins coagulate.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

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