Why it works: Almond and biscuit match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 388 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓
Almond Pudding
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
Blanch the bitter and sweet almonds.
Pound the blanched almonds in a mortar with orange-flower water and brandy.
Soak the pounded biscuit in the rich cream.
Melt the butter.
Beat the egg yolks with the sugar and lemon peel until very light.
Make the custard
Mix all ingredients together.
Heat gently over the fire until warm, but do not let it boil.
Bake
Bake in a dish lined with puff pastry for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).
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.
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Almond + biscuittop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together388 recipes
Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
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Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,634 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,125 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the mixture and enrich it, helping it set when baked.
- Rich cream
- Adds moisture and richness, giving the pudding a soft, smooth texture.
- Sweet almonds
- Provide the main nutty flavour and body of the pudding.
- Pounded biscuit
- Absorbs the cream and adds bulk, helping give the pudding structure.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a tender, smooth texture.
- Loaf sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and helps the egg yolks whip to a light texture.
The step that matters
Heat gently without boiling. Egg yolks thicken as they warm, but if the mixture boils they can scramble and curdle, leaving the pudding grainy instead of smooth.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, cream, biscuit, butter, egg, sugar, lemon):
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits about as well
- Raspberryfits about as well
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against almond, cream, biscuit, butter, egg, sugar, 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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