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Dessert

Cherry Souffle Pudding

A custard-based pudding with cherries, beaten egg whites, and a bitter almond flavor.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cherry Souffle Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Scald 1 cup of milk.

  2. Mix the prepared flour with the remaining milk and stir it in.

  3. Boil for one minute while stirring.

  4. Add the yolks beaten with sugar and flavor.

  5. Let the mixture cool.

Prepare the mold

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Fold the beaten whites into the custard.

  3. Butter a mold well and line the inside with cherries.

  4. Pour the custard into the mold.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil for 1.5 hours.

  2. Dip the mold in cold water.

  3. Remove the lid.

  4. Let the mold stand for one minute.

  5. Turn out onto a dish.

  6. Serve warm 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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Prepared flour
Thickens the milk into a stable custard base that holds the pudding together.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard, and beaten whites lighten the mixture for a souffle-like texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, adding moisture and body.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the eggs and flavoring.
Crystallized or glace cherries
Lining the mold with cherries gives fruit flavor and a decorative surface on the turned-out pudding.

The step that matters

Fold the beaten whites into the custard. Whites hold air only when beaten stiff; folding gently keeps that air in the mixture so the pudding rises and stays light rather than collapsing into a dense custard.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, egg, sugar):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Milletfits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits less well
  4. Hazelnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, egg, sugar. 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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