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Dessert

Burnt Cream Pudding

A custard pudding made with milk, gelatin, egg yolks, brown sugar, vanilla, and served with whipped cream.

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 ↓

Burnt Cream Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Dissolve the gelatin in a part of the boiling milk and stir it in.

  3. Beat the egg yolks with the brown sugar until well combined.

  4. Stir the egg mixture into the milk mixture constantly.

  5. Brown the 4 heaping tablespoons of brown sugar in a separate pan and stir it in after cooling the mixture for a minute.

  6. Add the vanilla and mix well.

Serve

  1. 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. Gelatin + creamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, 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

Milk
Forms the body of the pudding and gives it a creamy, rich base.
Gelatin
Sets the liquid custard so it holds its shape when chilled.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness and smoothness.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the custard and, when browned, adds a caramel flavor.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg mixture into the milk. Adding the eggs to hot milk too quickly or without constant stirring can scramble the yolks, leaving lumps instead of a smooth custard. Stirring constantly and gradually tempers the eggs so they thicken evenly.

“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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