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Dessert

Vermicelli. Pudding

A creamy pudding made with vermicelli, milk, cream, butter, sugar, cinnamon, and egg yolks.

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard

  1. Boil the vermicelli in milk until soft, adding cinnamon.

  2. Stir in the thick cream, butter, sugar, and beaten egg yolks.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into an earthen dish without a crust.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until set.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Vermicelli
Softens in milk to form the body of the pudding.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and help it set when baked.
Thick cream
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a soft, moist crumb.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the pasta softens in and the custard sets from.

The step that matters

Bake until just set. Egg yolks set at a moderate heat and can curdle or turn grainy if overbaked. Removing the dish once the centre barely wobbles keeps the custard smooth.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonthe original
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, butter, sugar, 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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