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Dessert

Delmonico Pudding

A custard pudding made with milk, eggs, sugar, corn starch, and vanilla, topped with browned meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Delmonico 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 custard

  1. In a large pan, heat the milk until it boils, reserving a little to mix with the corn starch.

  2. In a bowl, mix the reserved milk with the corn starch until smooth.

  3. Add the yolks of the eggs, 4 tablespoons of sugar, and the corn starch mixture to the boiling milk, stirring until it thickens.

Top and brown

  1. In another bowl, beat the egg whites with 2 tablespoons of sugar until stiff peaks form.

  2. Spread the beaten egg whites over the pudding and brown slightly in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

Serve

  1. Serve cold with sauce.

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

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

  3. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens into the custard.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and thicken the custard; whites whip into a light topping that browns.
Corn starch
Thickens the hot milk into a smooth, sliceable custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the egg whites hold stiff peaks.

The step that matters

Stirring the custard as it thickens. Cornstarch thickens sharply once the hot milk nears boiling. Constant stirring keeps it smooth and prevents lumps or scorching on the base of the pan.

“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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