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Dessert

Amsterdam Pudding

A milk and cracker crumb pudding with cocoa, sugar, eggs, and vanilla, boiled for an hour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Amsterdam Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding base

  1. Pour scalding milk over the cracker crumbs.

  2. Add butter, cocoa powder, and sugar to the milk mixture and stir well.

Finish and cook

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until frothy.

  2. Fold the beaten egg whites and vanilla extract into the milk mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered mold and boil for 1 hour.

  4. Serve warm.

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

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

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

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

  4. Cocoa powder + vanillatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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
Beaten whites trap air and give the pudding a light, set structure as it cooks.
Cracker crumbs
Soak up the hot milk and form the bulk and body of the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds to its moist, tender texture.
Milk
Softens the crumbs and provides moisture for the pudding base.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Folding the beaten egg whites into the milk mixture. Whites hold air only if they are beaten to frothy peaks and folded gently. Stirring vigorously deflates them, leaving a dense pudding instead of a light, airy one.

“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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