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Dessert

Almond Pudding, Baked

A baked pudding made with ground almonds, butter, sugar, milk, eggs, lemon rind, and cinnamon, layered with bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Almond Pudding, Baked

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dish

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Butter a pie dish and line the bottom with thin, buttered slices of bread.

  3. Mix the ground almonds, lemon rind, and cinnamon together and place in the pie dish.

  4. Cover the almond mixture with more thin slices of bread.

  5. Add the remaining almond mixture.

  6. Cover again with slices of bread.

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk and stir in the sugar.

  2. Beat the eggs well, then pour the hot milk onto them, stirring constantly.

  3. Gradually add the milk mixture to the pie dish in tablespoonfuls to avoid floating the bread.

Bake

  1. Cover the pudding and let it stand for 1 hour.

  2. Bake gently for about 1 hour.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the pudding its body.
Milk
Forms the liquid custard that soaks the bread and sets with the eggs.
Bread
Provides the structure that holds the layers together and soaks up the custard.
Ground almonds
Add richness and a nutty flavour to the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and keeps the bread from sticking to the dish.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the eggs and milk.

The step that matters

Adding the hot milk to the eggs. Pouring hot milk into eggs all at once can scramble them. Adding it slowly while stirring constantly tempers the eggs so the custard stays smooth and sets evenly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, almond, butter, sugar, milk, egg, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, almond, butter, sugar, milk, egg, cinnamon. 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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