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Dessert

Vermicelli Pudding with Apples or Without

A sweet pudding made with vermicelli, milk, butter, sugar, eggs, and optionally apples, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Vermicelli Pudding with Apples or Without

Ingredients

Directions

Make the vermicelli base

  1. Gradually drop the vermicelli into the boiling milk while stirring to prevent lumps.

  2. Boil gently for about 20 minutes, stirring frequently until thick and tender.

  3. Stir in the butter and sugar until well combined.

  4. Let the mixture cool in a bowl, stirring occasionally.

Assemble and bake

  1. Whisk the eggs until light, then quickly beat them into the cooled mixture along with the lemon rind or brandy.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish and press the apple quarters into the top.

  3. Bake until the pudding is set and lightly browned.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Lemon + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the pudding and help it set into a sliceable custard-like texture when baked.
Vermicelli
Thickens the milk as it simmers and gives the pudding its body and tender bite.
Butter
Adds richness and a softer, smoother mouthfeel to the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and contributes to browning on the baked surface.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the vermicelli cooks into and sets around the eggs.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before adding the eggs. If the base is still hot when the eggs go in, they can scramble or curdle instead of blending smoothly. Cooling first lets the eggs mix in evenly and set gently in the oven.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

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