Name: Macaroon Puddings
Ingredients: 1 pint boiling cream; ½ pound macaroons; 4 egg yolks; 4 egg whites; ⅓ cup brandy; 2 tablespoons powdered sugar

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Macaroon Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Pour boiling cream over macaroons and let cool.
Break macaroons into small pieces with the back of a spoon.

Make and bake

Add beaten egg yolks, egg whites, brandy, and powdered sugar.
Mix well and pour into tea cups.
Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 15 minutes.

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.

Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Cream + brandytop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,635 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,340 recipes

Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).
Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together11,939 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Brandy and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Macaroons: Provide the main body and sweet almond flavor that the pudding is built around.
Egg yolks: Enrich the mixture and help it set into a custard-like texture when baked.
Egg whites: Add lightness and help structure the pudding as it bakes.
Boiling cream: Softens the macaroons and carries their flavor, creating a moist base.
Brandy: Adds aroma and a warm, distinctive flavor to the pudding.

“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.