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Dessert

Alma Pudding

A steamed almond pudding made with bitter almonds, ground almonds, milk, bread crumbs, suet, sugar, flour, lemon rind, lemon juice, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour 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 ↓

Alma Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Simmer the bitter almonds in the milk for 20 minutes.

  2. Remove the almonds and pour the milk over the bread crumbs.

Mix and steam

  1. Stir in the suet, sugar, flour, lemon rind, ground almonds, and lemon juice.

  2. Finally, add the beaten eggs and mix well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a well-greased mold.

  4. Steam for 3 hours.

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 + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Bind the mixture and set the pudding as it steams.
Bread crumbs
Soak up the milk to give the pudding body and a soft crumb.
Suet
Adds fat that makes the pudding moist and rich in texture.
Flour
Adds structure so the pudding holds its shape after steaming.
Ground almonds
Contribute nutty flavour and a tender, moist texture.

The step that matters

Pour the milk over the bread crumbs. The crumbs need to absorb the flavoured milk fully before the other ingredients go in. Unsoaked crumbs stay dry and gritty, and the pudding turns out uneven in texture.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, milk, bread, sugar, flour, 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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