Skip to main content
Dessert

Dandy Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with milk, eggs, corn starch, sugar, and vanilla, topped with stiffened egg whites and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Dandy Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Moisten the corn starch with a little cold milk and add it to the boiling milk.

  3. Stir and boil for 5 minutes.

  4. Beat the yolks of the eggs and sugar together until light, then add to the boiling milk.

  5. Remove from heat, add the vanilla, and pour into a baking dish.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until very stiff, then add 2 tablespoons powdered sugar and heap on top of the pudding.

  2. Bake in the oven at 400°F (200°C) for a few minutes until light brown.

Serve

  1. Serve ice cold.

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 of the custard, giving the pudding its body and creamy texture.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard and whites, beaten stiff, form the light topping that browns in the oven.
Corn starch
Thickens the boiling milk so the custard sets to a smooth, sliceable consistency.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the topping brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Adding the moistened corn starch to the boiling milk. Corn starch must be dispersed in cold milk first, then stirred into boiling milk. Added dry or lumpy, it clumps and the custard turns uneven. Stirring while it boils lets the starch swell and thicken fully.

“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.

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesCorn CakeCorn Cake90 recipesCorn Starch CakeCorn Starch Cake89 recipesCorn CakesCorn Cakes22 recipes