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Dessert

Madeleine Puddings

Madeleine puddings are small cakes filled with apricot jam and pounded almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Madeleine Puddings

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pans

  1. Clarify 1 ounce of butter and skim it.

  2. Coat round tin pattypans with the clarified butter, leaving ½ teaspoon in each.

Make and bake the batter

  1. Mix the remaining butter with eggs, sugar, and flour, and beat lightly.

  2. Fill the pans about two-thirds full and bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 to 18 minutes.

  3. Turn out the puddings and drain on paper.

Fill and finish

  1. Once cool, hollow out the tops with a knife and fill with a mixture of apricot jam and pounded almonds.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Apricot + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + apricottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,458 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and clarified butter coats the pans to help the puddings release.
Eggs
Provide structure and lift to the batter as it sets in the oven.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown lightly.
Flour
Gives the batter structure so the puddings hold their shape when baked.
Pounded almonds
Add nutty flavour and a moist, rich texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Fill the pans two-thirds full. Batter that fills the pans too full can overflow or bake unevenly, while too little leaves the puddings flat and under-risen. Beating lightly keeps the batter airy so it rises well in the hot oven.

Swap the apricot

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

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

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