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Dessert

Swedish Pudding

A custard-like pudding made from milk, eggs, sugar, and vanilla, baked in a sugar-lined mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Swedish 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.

Make the caramel

  1. Boil 1 cup of sugar in a saucepan until it turns into a brown syrup.

  2. Line a pudding dish with the brown syrup.

Make the custard

  1. Combine 1 cup of sugar and 1 quart of milk in the same pan (without washing).

  2. Heat the mixture until scalding.

  3. Pour the hot milk mixture over 8 beaten eggs.

  4. Add vanilla extract to the mixture.

  5. Pour the mixture into the sugar-lined pudding mold.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the mold in a pan of hot water.

  2. Cook on the stove for 30 minutes.

  3. Transfer the mold to a 350°F (175°C) oven.

  4. Bake for another 30 minutes.

  5. Serve with whipped cream.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Syrup + creamtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Set the custard into a tender, sliceable structure as they cook.
Milk
Provides the liquid base and moisture that keeps the custard soft.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and, when boiled, browns into the caramel syrup.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot milk over the eggs. Adding hot milk too fast can scramble the beaten eggs. Pouring slowly while whisking gently raises their temperature evenly, so the custard stays smooth.

“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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