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Dessert

Vermicelli Pudding Baked

A baked pudding made with milk, cream, cinnamon, cloves, vermicelli, eggs, butter, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Vermicelli Pudding Baked

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.

Make the custard base

  1. Combine milk, cream, cinnamon, and cloves in a saucepan.

  2. Heat until boiling.

  3. Remove cinnamon and cloves.

  4. Stir in vermicelli.

  5. Transfer to a bowl and let cool.

Bake and serve

  1. Add eggs, butter, and sugar to the cooled mixture and mix well.

  2. Pour into a greased baking dish.

  3. Top with small pieces of butter.

  4. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

  5. Serve with grated nutmeg.

  6. Dust with sugar.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the pudding its structure.
Vermicelli
Absorbs the milk and cream, forming the body of the pudding.
Milk
Provides the liquid that the vermicelli soaks up and the eggs set in.
Cream
Adds richness and a softer, silkier texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs thicken as their proteins coagulate with heat. Pulling the pudding too early leaves it runny, while overbaking makes it dry and curdled.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cardamomfits about as well
  2. Allspicefits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, cinnamon, egg, butter, sugar, nutmeg. 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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